


Pilgrim Soul

by phillipthefrog



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Angel Castiel, Angst and Humor, Blood and Violence, Book of the Damned, Demon Dean, Demon Dean Winchester, Destiel - Freeform, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Human Castiel, M/M, Non-Angel Castiel, Pilgrim Soul, Post-Canon, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Violence, knights of hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:28:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7668361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phillipthefrog/pseuds/phillipthefrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an attempt to end Lucifer once and for all, Rowena proposes to the Winchesters a rather unconventional plan; Dean and Castiel have to discover lost spells from the Book of the Damned but they're gonna have to go into an alternate universe to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Simple Twist of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after the events of Season 11 and without any mention of the British Men of Letters. So you can say it's canonverse with some plot omission. The fic is completed and I'll be posting chapters as I comb through for typos. ^-^/

“We could release Michael?” Sam suggested. He was slouched over the map table, his eyes watching his brother’s face steadily, knowing already what the response was going to be but he had to give it a try.

            Dean paused in his pacing to throw him a side glare along with a loud, “No.”

            “It would be too risky,” Castiel chimed in. He was sitting across from Sam, his hands neatly on his lap, his striped blue tie facing the wrong direction. “Besides it was a battle between Michael and Lucifer that was to begin the apocalypse and Michael is a traditionalist after all-”

            “Yeah I know,” Sam interrupted. Frustrated, he ran a hand through his chin length hair and sighed.

            They were all ignoring the elephant room. Although she wasn’t much of one. Dainty, in a dress of dark green taffeta and cat’s eye makeup, Rowena sat at the head of the table like the poker player with a royal flush, not bothering to conceal her hand. “Well?” She said with her usual dramatic flair. Sam looked at her long enough to roll his eyes. “Men! How typical. Soooo literal. Soooo unimaginative.”

            “Why should we trust you, Rowena? And besides the last time you used a spell from the book, it released the Darkness,” Sam replied. In truth, he was willing to listen to what she said but this was their usual game.

            “Lucifer snapped her neck,” Cas reminded him. “I remember. I was there.”

            “Does Crowley know about your plan?” Sam asked her.

            “HA! Fergus is utterly useless!” She pushed up her curls like a cat preening itself. Rowena was worried that the Winchesters would inform her son of her plan but she had to take the chance, the payoff was too great.  

            Sam had her cornered-at least in terms of the bickering game. “So you’re saying that we’re useful?”

            “Oh God!” Dean scoffed. “Stop fighting. There’s obviously something more to this that she isn’t telling us.”

            “Naturally,” Rowena replied to Dean. Smiling, she patted Sam’s hand. “You are useful, Paul Bunyan. You and your two wee oxen.”

            “Rowena. Just cut to it.” Dean finally took a seat between her and Cas. “The longer we talk, the longer Satan is out there amassing his cult of goths and wicked skanks like yourself. So, what’s your plan?”

            “We fought Amara together, Dean. I took that curse off your arm, if you remember? You think you would be nicer to me.”

            As she spoke, the dead look in the elder Winchester’s eyes remained as if he was just waiting for her to shut up. “You also put that Berserk spell on Cas and stole the Book of the Damned. Not to mention, you betrayed us and got Lucifer out in the first place.”

            “Ironic! Considering that he needed to be let out to clean up the Winchesters’ mess! Or have you forgotten?”

            “Please,” Cas sighed. “We’ve all done regrettable things but as of right now, we all want Lucifer either dead or back in his cage. Now, Michael is not an option. So what is your suggestion, Rowena?”

            She straightened herself up like a girl about to tell her friends a juicy piece of gossip. She had practiced these words in her head before coming to the boys’ bunker. Now, it was showtime. “Crazy though Sister Agnes may be, there was a method to her madness,” she began. “The Book of the Damned follows if you will, a train of thought. It begins with spells to cause damage, then to curses, then to the natural powers of the elements: spells to conjure up, say: fire storms, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes-”

            “The pentagram…” Sam realized, his voice just above a whisper. “Each point on the pentagram represents one of the elements. Fire, Water, Air, Earth…”

            “Nice, Samuel. You would have made a good witch.” He narrowed his eyes at her unsure if she was complimenting him or not. “Of course, you are a Man of Letters, after all? Or should I say, a sexist self-righteous librarian who persecuted the great witches of yore and stole their magical secrets like a bunch of thieving white European colonialists?”

            That was a bit much. Sam was almost unable to respond. “But the fifth…” he stayed on the subject. “Is Spirit?”

            “Precisely. And that’s where I found the spell to collect the souls.”

            “Ok, so get to it,” Dean was getting impatient. Rowena loved to drag them along. Speaking to her always required a performance on her part.

            “Then it ends!”

            “Really?” Dean shared a look with Sam. “After all that, you leave it off with ‘it ends?’ So are you suggesting we make another soul bomb?”

            “That isn’t possible. Even if Billie was willing to play ball with us, she already raided the veil,” Sam replied.

            “And that would mean one of us would have to hold all the souls,” Cas added. “It could work. I was able to kill Raphael with all the souls from purgatory but you saw what that did to me…”

            “Cas,” Dean spoke gently. “No one is going to sacrifice themselves, ok? No more of that. It never ends well.”

            “Pity,” Rowena pouted. “But that may be because you three suffer from a severe case of co-dependency with a side of martyr complex. Not to forget the cherry of repressed emotions on top,” she directed that last bit at Dean.

            “Do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk, Rowena?” Sam returned.

            “Only because I have to explain every little detail so you’d understand, my bonny BFG.”

            “I have a feeling that there is something else you haven’t told us yet,” Cas said. “You’re not suggesting we use souls to kill Lucifer, are you?”

            “No. Who knew you were the cute one and the smart one, Castiel? There were several blank pages following the final entries.”

            “So? A lot of books have that,” Dean interjected.

            Sam knew where she was going with this. “Dean, the pages are made from her own skin,” he explained. "Agnes would have to be on a whole new level of crazy to add pages for notes." He turned back to Rowena. "You’re suggesting that there were spells she knew but weren’t able to write down.”

            “Bingo! Before she could write them down, poor Crazy Sister Agnes was captured and burned but I suspect that there may be something in there that can help us end that pesky little Lucifer.”

            Dean was beginning to get suspicious. Even if there were a way they could uncover these lost spells, they would only increase Rowena’s knowledge and therefore, her power. Besides, there was no guarantee that they would even work. “But, wouldn’t that require souls? Didn’t you say that part of the book was organized in the so called five elements”

            Time for the kicker. “There was a word that followed the last spell...something Agnes didn’t have time to get to...something along the line of souls...but not quite…” She dragged her finger along the top of the table, creating imaginary currents in the gold colored water. She looked down coyly. Pausing in the suspense, she then raised her eyes and beneath her long dark eyelashes, Rowena gazed directly at Castiel and said with heavy drama, “Grace.”

            It took a total of ten seconds of tense silence for Dean to jump up and explode with anger. “Hell no!” He pointed his finger angrily in Rowena’s direction. “No. We are not using Cas’ grace.”

            “If that’s what is required then I am ok with that,” Cas replied calmly.

            “No. That isn’t happening.” Dean attempted to collect himself but beneath his quiet tone, he was evidently frustrated. “I respected your decision to let Lucifer in but I’m not going to let you hurt yourself to put him back.”

            “Without my grace, I’m just human, Dean. It’s hard but you and Sam do just fine. It’s a small price to pay-”

            “Exactly! I mean,” Dean sat down next to Cas and looked him squarely in the face. “Without your grace, you can get sick. You can fall down a flight a stairs and break your neck. You can choke on a pretzel. You can get old. Get E.D.? And Die!” Cas didn’t seem moved. “What’s wrong with you? No. It’s not happening.” He was putting his foot down on this one. No more sacrifices. No more borrowing from Peter to pay Paul kind of crap.

            “First off!” Rowena rose to her feet. “Thank you for proving my point about your toxic co-dependecy, Dean Winchester but I never suggested that we use the little bird’s grace. I only suggested that the key to killing Lucifer might be found in the pages pertaining to angelic grace.”

            “The pages that Agnes never wrote,” Sam added.

            “Yes. And you think I came here without an idea about how to uncover these lost spells?” Each of them stared at her; Sam, a mix of curiosity and irritation, Dean with his defensiveness and Castiel with what looked to Rowena as a silent expectation of doom. “You three need to seriously perk up! Did it ever occur to you that this little quest could be fun?”

            “So what? Time travel?” Dean suggested.

            “No. Something better. Agnes may have known the spells or received them through some form of magical revelation. Add that to the fact that it is unlikely that any of you besides the angel speak the same language as her, her penchant for solitude and general madness makes me believe that she will not tell you a thing!”

            “And we can’t send you because...?” Sam asked.

            “I doubt that she would speak to me, either.”

            Dean folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at the wily witch, interested for the first time in her proposal. “So, what’s something better, then?”

            “Well, it will take a long time to explain to you lads but in short, we open a portal to an alternate universe where Sister Agnes was never unjustly slain and you find the book, memorize the spells, and write them down for me once you return to our world.” She said all this rather rapidly and was as she expected, met with stunned silence.

            Dean rose to his feet. He needed a beer. Or whiskey. Maybe both. “Lady, you have been watching too much Star Trek.”

            “Dean,” Cas called out to him. “She isn’t exactly wrong.” Castiel never even considered the possibility before. Perhaps Rowena was right, they did lack imagination.

            “Are you really saying there is alternate universes?” Sam rubbed at his face violently. Man, their lives were crazy.

            “Not quite. They aren’t exactly real per se. It’s complicated.”

            Dean threw his hands up in the air. “Well, shoot, Einstein.”

            “In heaven, it was a rather controversial topic and wasn’t exactly discussed until many of your physicists in the 20th century began to posit-”

            “Spare me the science lesson,” Dean interrupted.

            “Well, if free will existed, then that meant that events were not established in exact order. If certain decisions were made instead of others, they could change the course of history and yet, it was known that things were meant to exist. For example, all the souls of those born now from past, present, and future were made by God before he created Earth. It’s sorta like-”

            “You have a bunch of LEGOs and the world can be built in different ways,” Sam mused.

            “Yes. A bit like that. They aren’t real exactly. They are theoretical structures that continue on a path tangent from the path chosen in the tangible universe. A sorta never ending ‘what-if.’”

            “Like the djinn’s dream world?” Dean was trying to mentally grasp what was being said to him.

            “Sorta but not quite.”

            “Well, what you’re saying, Rowena sounds interesting but even if these 'what if' universes existed, it sounds like heavy duty magic. Are you saying that you have the ability to zap us into one?” Sam asked.

            “I don’t but I think I know someone who does. And from what I gather so do you,” Rowena knelt and picked up her purse, an exquisite Gucci handbag worth more than the Winchester’s entire wardrobe and whose beauty was totally lost on them as were many of the great things in life. She pulled out a paperback novel on the cover was a hand drawn artwork of the Titanic, the title ‘My Heart Will Go On’ written across it.” She placed it gingerly between the three of them somewhere on the Atlantic ocean, perhaps where the wretched thing actually went down.

            Dean quickly snatched it up. “What the hell! What is Chuck’s problem? Did he ever stop publishing these?” After examining it like it was about to grow sharp teeth and bite him, he threw it at his brother.

            “Well, they say he is a cruel and unjust God,” Rowena smiled. “I read every single one of them once our poor friend Charlie informed me of their existence. Even some of the homoerotic spinoffs online.” Dean glared at her hoping that if looks could kill, this would be the time. “I don’t agree with that weasely little hobbit Metatron, I rather liked them especially the parts where you cry. Always brought a teensy tear to my eye,” she mocked.

            “This is about the time Balthazar unsunk the Titanic in order to horde more souls…” Sam thumbed through it, feeling a weird twinge when he found a sentence that described the late angel as a heavenly, sexy James Bond. He quickly closed it.

            “Pissed a certain gal off if you recall,” Rowena said.

            “Fate,” Castiel stated. “You’re saying that Fate and her two sisters may help us get to this alternate universe?”

            Dean was beginning to believe that this plan was too convoluted to pay off. “Who is to say that she will help us? Last I checked, she’s the stubborn sort. Sorta in the name description.”

            “Well, we summon the little bookkeeper and if she doesn’t comply, we threaten to sever her head from her body.” Rowena was indeed right. They had no imagination.

            “It’s too risky. She could sic her sisters on us.” Sam sighed. Maybe there was a way to compel her to send them but he wasn’t about to take that chance.

            “We may be able to reason with her,” Cas suggested. “She isn’t necessarily bad. Fate is after all, an amoral force.”

            “And if she doesn’t?” Dean turned to him.

            “Then we kill her and we summon her two sisters and kill the lot of them,” Rowena answered.

            “Maybe you’re right, Cas. Perhaps we should just talk to her first,” Sam said, ignoring Rowena outright.

            The witch rolled her eyes. Must there be banter over every little decision? “You honestly think Fate can be reasoned with?”

            “Hey, if we do this we’re following your plan right?” Dean actually seemed a bit excited about it. This was better than time travel. “And if we’re gonna follow your plan, we’re going to do it our way, capisce?”

            “Sounds like an oxymoron from the King of Morons himself!” Rowena retorted but that was the end of it. What was the worse that could happen? They could summon Fate and botch the whole thing, no big deal, right?

***

            Dean threw the match into the brass bowl filled with strings from some random Greek harp, the bones of Hercules, and shavings from Artemis’ bow. Of course, there was a little bit of blood to wet the concoction. “Time to Final Destination part 69 this bitch,” he said, pleased with himself. He looked at the others for validation but he received only blank stares.

            “I thought they only made five versions of that film,” Castiel remarked, missing the 10 year old boy humor that seasoned all of Dean’s jokes.

            “Yes,” he replied to the angel. “Yes, they did.”

            “You honestly think you’re funny, don’t you?” Rowena looked at him from the other side of the semicircle they formed inside of the bunker’s dungeon. It had taken Castiel a total of thirty minutes to collect all the ingredients of the summoning spell. Sam found it easily having already mastered the cataloging pattern of the Men of Letters’ library. When he plucked it from the shelf, he had to push Rowena away lest the witch look at what was written inside.

            “My humor is like caviar. It takes a refined palate to appreciate.”

            She gaped at him. “Uh-huh...”

            “Guys,” Sam said. Fate had appeared in front of them suddenly, her book held tight against her body, her inquisitive eyes examining each of the four standing before her and a motley crew they were: the Winchesters, obviously freaks of nature, Castiel an even freakier freak of nature, and a 300 year old witch, surprising the least freaky. Fate herself was small, prudish, and uptight. Naturally, this group didn’t exactly please her.

            “Castiel,” she squeaked. “What is going on?”

            “We need your help,” he answered.

            “Well, I figured. It better be important. I’m very busy,” she said, turning her nose up self-righteously.

            “Of course. I understand.”

            Dean cut to the chase. “We need you to send us to an alternate universe where a certain batshit nun never bit the dust.”

            To his surprise, Fate caught on rather quickly. “And why would I do that, Dean Winchester? If I had my way and mind you, I don’t think anyone should have their way, I’d rather drop you into a black hole, Mr. Drop Out with 6 bucks to his name! Don’t think I don’t know about your little Team Free Will boyband!” She began to get flustered as she worked herself up.

            “This way, you won’t be irrelevant,” he spat back smartly-or stupidly. He could feel Sam glowering at the side of his face.

            “Well, how nice of you to say. I think I just might make you choke on a cheeseburger, Mr. Winchester,” she pinched her mousey nose at him.

            “At least, I’d die happy."

            “Oh stop!” Rowena waved her hand dismissively at him. “Fate, I’m very impressed by your work, honestly. You’re so...how can I say? So very final? Decisive? Conclusive? I admire your expediency-”

            “Get to it, Rowena,” Fate wasn’t buying the act.

            “We’re hoping that there is a certain spell that can undo Lucifer and that Sister Agnes, writer of the Book of the Damned, a-”

            “I know what the Book of the Damned is, Rowena and I know who Sister Agnes is,” Fate interrupted. “You want me to help one of you go into this alternate universe to find out what she may have written if she hadn’t died?”

            “I know it’s a lot to ask of you,” Castiel said soothingly.

            Fate eyed him. “It is. Especially coming from you. You’re not exactly on my Christmas card list, Castiel.”

            “I know. I’m not exactly on many people’s list as you say but Lucifer is dangerous.”

            “Why should I help you stop him?”

            “With all do respect, Fate,” Sam said. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

            She let out a small gasp. “You think I care about what the ‘right’ thing is? There is no such thing, Sam Winchester. Wrong and Right is subjective. Events play out as they will and it is people who determine what is morally good or morally evil. Fate just is,” she corrected him.

            “So how did we stop the apocalypse if it was destined to happen?” Dean smiled smugly at her.

            Fate didn’t seem to have a response. She just watched him angrily behind her square shaped glasses.

            “Would you rather be cleaning up Lucifer’s messes or ours?” Sam asked as gently as he could.

            “I’d rather not be cleaning up anyone’s messes, thank you! But you know, I think we can make a deal.” She smiled, pleased with herself like a good girl skipping school.

            “A deal?”

            “I will send you to this alternate universe under two conditions.”

            “Okay. What conditions?” Dean asked.

            “One, Castiel must accompany you. I’m not about to let a human wander about universes unchaperoned without any insight into the risks involved and although Castiel isn’t ideal, there aren’t many options.”

            “What’s two?” Dean asked.

            “Sam Winchester cannot go.”

            “What you don’t like him?”

            “The witch can’t go either because she’s skeevy,” Fate added. Rowena gasped loudly as one would expect at such an insult. “And yes, Dean Winchester. I don’t like him. I don’t like you either but as much as you like to think it was you who stood me up, it was Sam who took a nose dive into that cage. He needs to go to detention.”

            “What? Is being Lucifer’s and Michael’s punching bag not enough for you?”

            “No. It isn’t. And I don’t trust him either. He’s the smart one and I don’t want him going about learning other things he shouldn’t know.” Before Dean could reply to her calling him the dumb one, Fate added quickly: “That and since he bears a striking resemblance to that scoundrel, Hercules, I think I’d rather enjoy watching him labor away in my library all day.”

            “So you want me to work in your library?”

            “Oh goodness!” Rowena wiped the nonexistent sweat off her brow. “The little thing has a crush on you.”

            Fate turned the color of a ripe tomato. “Stop. Not true,” she chirped.

            “Fine,” Sam agreed. “Send Dean and Cas to this alternate universe. Give them enough time to find the spells and I’ll work in your library. As far as I am concerned, it’s a good deal.”

            Dean patted his brother on the shoulder. “Of course, you’d think that. You’re like a jumbo sized nerd.”

***

            Within moments, the five of them were standing in the middle of what appeared to be an immense library. Looking up, the floors upon floors of bookshelves spiraled up into the sky into a fuzzy haze. The ceiling could not be seen the building was so tall. The library itself was made of stone and in the space between the floors, there were reliefs carved in the style of Greek antiquity. It seemed to have a narrative of sorts, starting with a fish with legs crawling from the water. From as far as they could see, the story had reached Adam and Eve plucking a fruit from a tree. Sam surmised that as the floors went higher and higher, time became more recent.

            “You’re right,” Fate said as if she were reading his mind. “The library has no end. It reaches up and up as time marches on. On each of these shelves is written what has happened and what will happen.”

            “As well as what will never be?” Castiel inquired.

            She seemed displeased with his question. “Yes. In each of these books is written the story of what could have happened if Fate were to march in a different direction. Inside of these books are the universes you speak of.”

            “So each shelf has what actually happened?” Dean asked.

            “Well yes. But it’s not like you think. There is a book in each shelf that is _the_ story but it’s on every shelf. It’s the same book.”

            “Is it finished?”

            She stared at him for several moments. “It used to be,” she merely answered.

            “Do you know which book we need?” Rowena asked. There were so many books that she couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around it.

            “I will do what all good librarians do and make a query in the database and search for all entries that have the Book of the Damned completed.”

            “And then what?” Sam turned to look down one of the aisles. It seemed the library was as wide as it was tall. “There is probably an infinite amount of results.”

            “I’ll pick one at random.”

            Dean scoffed. “Random? That must be new for you.” Fate of course, glared at him.

            “I wouldn’t get on her bad side too much, Dean,” Cas cautioned. “She can find a universe particularly unpleasant for you.”

            “Humph!” Fate rolled her eyes. “As if I care!” From her back pocket, she pulled out a device that looked like a Kindle and began to type something in with her index finger, plucking away at the digital letters like a bird picking at breadcrumbs. She must have gotten her search results for she made a motion with her finger as if she let the screen scroll down haphazardly. Landing on one entry, she exclaimed, “Ha! This one will be interesting I bet! Very unconventional this universe in particular is.”

            “How do you know that?” Sam asked.

            “Because in the spectrum of time, this one differs from the story rather early.” She raised her hand and motioned towards a shelf and floor way above them. Soon they saw a brown leather-bound book descending slowly in midair towards Fate and landing gently in her hands.

           She opened it and inside were pages filled in the tiniest writing Sam had ever seen. The binding he noticed was made of gold thread. Fate flipped through the book as a malicious grin etched itself on her face. Something seemed to amuse her about this particular universe. When she reached the end, on the final page was drawn an image of a spinning wheel.

            “You cannot bring anything back with you from this universe. You must commit the spells to memory," Fate cautioned. "To return, you must find this wheel and spin it. It may be in a place you wouldn't expect it to be.” She looked up at Dean and Cas who hung on every single word.

            “How do you spin it?” Dean inquired. It was just a drawing in a book.

            Cas turned to him, ignoring his question and asked: “Are you ready?” Looking at his brother for approval, Dean nodded.

            “Be careful. Don’t die and don’t fail. Remember it is imperative that you find the spells,” Rowena felt she had to make sure that Dean knew that this was a mission and not a game.

            “Yeah, yeah,” Dean rolled his eyes at her.

            Sam wished them good luck said with a smile.

            Cas presented his hand to Dean who grasped it with great enthusiasm. Fate presented the book to them. Next to a blank page was the drawing of the spinning wheel. Cas lifted his finger and ran it along it’s round curve. The two of them watched the drawing come to life. Like a hypnosis wheel, it twirled and spiraled and soon, everything around them ceased to exist.       

            And in the library of universes, Sam and Rowena and Fate waited for their return.

***

            Dean felt like his body had been pushed through a three inch vacuum. At any moment, he thought his head was going to pop like a balloon and his insides were going to ooze out of every orifice. When the pressure finally abated, he felt the air enter his lungs with such a surge the first sound he heard was the sound of his mouth gasping.

            The next sense that returned was smell. Burning wood and the old books.

            “Dean?” He heard the deep guttural sound of Cas’s voice. He opened his eyes to see his friend staring down at him, his eyes vividly blue in the firelight and wide with surprise.

            “Hey buddy, we made it.” The smile he gave him for some reason seemed to confuse Cas. He tilted his head and rose to his feet. “A little help?”

            “Of course,” Cas extended his hand and helped Dean to his feet.

            "Nice digs." Instead of his usual beige trench coat and blue tie, Cas was wearing a form fitting cream dress shirt and dark brown pinstriped pants. He looked rather well put together and presentable. On his wrist, Dean's keen eye noted the gleam of what could only be a diamond bracelet.

            "Your clothes are..." What? The same? Cas seemed to be searching for a word. Dean was wearing what he had been all day, dark blue plaid over a grey shirt, worn out jeans, and cheap boots. The usual Winchester garb. Dean scanned the room. It appeared to be a rather fancy study. The fireplace was the focus, it's dark wood mantle twisted and twirled like the polished roots of an old tree. When he looked at it closer, it was a carving of several snakes slipping between one another, their heads meeting at where the hearth began. To say the least, it was creepy, the sort of thing Voldemort might have in his study.

            Directly across from it was an executive style desk made of the same type of wood. Papers were strewn about it; books were open here and there. Between these two was several black leather sofas sitting atop a deep purple Persian rug. Dean was guessing it was probably the real thing. Along the perimeter of the room were ceiling high bookcases. Whoever lived here was obviously very rich.

            The painting behind the desk immediately caught Dean's attention. If he had known more about art, he would have noted its chiaroscuro style, so thick in shadow. The subject was a large, old tree, the center of which emanated light as if the tree itself had a glowing heart.

            "Wow. Nice place," Dean moved towards the nearest shelf. Perhaps Fate had sent them to the Book of the Damned's location. He had to start somewhere.

            Cas however, stood there watching him.

            "You're gonna help?"

            "I ah... wasn't expecting you so soon."

            "What are you talking about, Cas?" Dean turned to face him. The look on Cas' face was oddly tender and mixed with what Dean, a lifelong hunter had recognized as fear. "Are you ok?" As the distance between them closed, Cas appeared to stiffen up.

            "I'm great, Dean. Better now that you are here..."

            That was obviously a lie. "What's wrong with you, man?"

            "Nothing." Cas attempted to smile.

            "Right..."

            "Um..." Cas's chest swelled as he took in a deep breath. He made his way over to the desk and poured himself a drink and swiftly drank it in one large gulp. Turning back to Dean, Cas somewhat awkwardly, leaned against the fancy desk. His sleeves were rolled up revealing his well formed forearms.

            "Okay buddy, why are you acting so strange?"

            Cas lifted a shaky hand and undid several of the top buttons on his shirt. Seeing his bare chest caused a strange sensation to wash over Dean. Peeping from the soft, cream-colored fabric was his smooth peach colored skin. "Oh...kay...It's not that warm in here." Dean felt immensely uncomfortable but he couldn't divert his eyes.

            Clenching his jaw, Castiel tilted his head and said in an even deeper voice than usual, "Dean." Wow. Ok. What the hell is going on? Dean recognized this. It was Cas's bad attempt at acting. He did that stupid stiff guttural thing when he tried to pretend to be an FBI agent.

            Dean raised his hands and walked towards him as if the man was holding a gun instead of removing his clothes. "Cas??" In all honesty, he wasn't naked but he was more revealed than Dean was used to and without his coat, with an unbutton shirt and bare arms, he might as well be.

            "Dean," that same stupid voice again.

            "Cas?" he finally reached him. Why did it sound like he was talking him off the edge? Again, the proximity seemed to make his friend nervous. He squirmed against the desk and attempted to play it cool.

            "We should...go there," Cas pointed to one of the sofas.

            "And why would I want to do that?"

            Tucking his chin in with what was obviously a miserable and yet humorous attempt at seduction, Cas looked up at Dean with big, soft blue eyes and said in his deep, deep voice, "we might be more comfortable there." Wow.

            "What the hell is all of this?"

            "It's not working is it?" A soft pink color flooded Cas' cheeks.

            "Your crappy-whatever this is?" he gestured angrily and yet, it wasn't as if he was entirely displeased, at least it was somewhat amusing. "Did Sam put you up to this?"

            Within seconds, Cas' face transformed in to utter confusion. "Sam? Your brother?"

            "No. Uncle Sam. Of course my brother."

            Cas slipped away from him and made his way over to the sofa. "What are you talking about, Dean?"

            "Okay. Enough. We have a job to do, come on." He followed him over to the sofa and grabbed his arm but Cas quickly avoided his grasp. Now, he was acting like he was dangerous.

            "I'm so sorry, Dean." Cas' eyes traveled up to the ceiling where painted in bright red was a devil's trap, the sort of which Dean was keenly familiar.

            "You're joking?" he quickly stepped out of the trap to Cas' great horror.

            "How did you..."

            "Because Cas, I'm not a freaking demon that's how..." And suddenly it hit him. This wasn't Cas, not exactly. It wasn't _his_ Cas. It was the Cas of this world. It was a Cas who wore fancy clothes and diamond jewelry. It was a Cas who for some reason knew a Dean who was a demon.

            How was he going to play this one off? Tell him he's been zapped in by Fate from an alternate universe in search of lost spells he may or may not be able to use to kill Lucifer? Even if this Cas knew about demons that was just too far out. Better to lie. He just had to fake it long enough to reunite with the real Cas and find the lost book. "Um... I was cured. Yay for me, right?" he tried to give him his most charming boyish smile.

            "Cured? You can cure that?"

            "Yeah...of course. I um...learned it...from a witch." Hey it was as good a lie as any. Without a moment's notice, Cas splashed him in the face with holy water. He could have used a little warning. "Told you, not a demon." Dean used the back of his sleeve to dry his face.

            "Dean..." Cas said softly. Before he knew it, he was being hugged so tightly he thought his bones were going to break. For a second, Dean almost pushed him away but he decided against it. He was surprised to find that it felt good to be held like that. Cas rarely touched let alone hugged.

            Finally, Cas pulled away and gazed up at him. "You are different. You even smell different."

            "Yeah..."

            "You smell like..."

            "Beer and burgers?"

            Cas furrowed his brow. Deciding to come up with his own judgment, he sniffed at Dean's neck. "Whoa, whoa..." Dean took a step back.

            "I know," he smiled, proud of himself. Despite the whole strangeness of this world, it was comforting to see the familiar lines that formed around Cas' eyes. "You smell like gasoline and cedar."

            "You were always so precise," Dean replied stiffly. Cedar? Where the hell did that come from?

            "It's very...um...sexy," Cas raised his eyebrows.

            "Uh...thanks?"

            "Are you really cured?" He closed the distance between them, clasping at Dean's face and moving it back and forth, examining it for any markings or scratches. "So you're human?"

            "Yes, Cas-" Dean tried to fight off the prying hands but they were determined.

            "You're not angry with me?"

            "No why would I-"

            "How do you feel?" Cas tried to catch his eyes. Figuring there was no point in fighting, he let him look into them. What was he trying to see? Haziness? Signs of illness?

            "I feel great, Cas. I feel...uh _feelings?_ " When Dean was cured of his demonhood before back in his own world, what he really felt was guilt and the most immeasurable sadness, all the shitty emotions he numbed with alcohol and bad jokes. Cas returned the focus of his eyes. And there it was, that weird moment when their eyes met. Dean felt a panic grip his heart at the same time his insides began to melt. You'd think he'd get used to it. But you see, it's just Cas's intensity. It was so direct. So unapologetically probing. Dean couldn't breathe under such...scrutiny.

            Cas lifted his hand and placed it gently on his cheek. It felt so soft there. For a moment, Dean felt himself falling into it; his stomach turned to the air that his lungs so desperately needed. This was stupid. Dean was stupid.

            He couldn't think.

            Moving his face from Cas's touch, Dean nearly begged: "Please don't."

            "You are mad at me, aren't you?"

            _What was going on?_ He just touched your damn face, you stupid schoolgirl.

            To his rescue, the door was swung ajar and marching in was his Castiel, trench coat and all. He quickly shut the door behind him. "Dean," he said. "This place Fate has sent us is very dangerous. It's crawling with demons and I don't think they are just any kinds of demons, Knights of Hell in all likelihood. We're gonna need to leave-" He stopped talking the moment the other Cas turned to look at him. "Well, this is awkward," he reported.

            Alternate Cas, for a lack of a better term turned to look at Dean who smiled back at him sheepishly.

            "Is your name Jimmy Novak?" Leave it to Cas to be assertive and not waste any time.

            "No. He's Cas, too," Dean answered for him.

            "Well, that's peculiar but it may be useful."

            "How?"

            "Well, I know myself and I may be useful."

            "Well, aren't you a model of self-esteem."

            "Don't be daft Dean, we're here to find the Book of the Damned not meddle in this universe's affairs." Cas marched up to himself. "Now, this may sound a bit crazy but if I know myself, I think you can handle this. We're from an alternate universe here on mission to find a spell that can end our adversary-the adversary, Lucifer. Do you have any knowledge of this book or who might know about it?" Alternate Cas stared at him with wide eyes.

            "Great. You're so freaky Cas, you even freaked yourself out," Dean threw his hands up. There goes the game.

            "Please, we don't have much time. This place is crawling with demons. We're not safe here."

            "I don't know about this book," Cas answered himself. Watching the two of them talking was strange to say the least. "But I think I might know who would if anyone."

            "Who?"

            Alternate Cas directed his attention at Dean.

            "The Dean Winchester of this universe?"

            "Winchester?"

            "How do we speak to him?"

            Alternate Cas took a deep breath to collect himself. Whatever Real Cas had found out there was fast approaching. Dean could hear the hollow stomping of their boots, marching towards the door.

            "Trust me, you don't want to talk to him."

            "Apparently, I'm a demon here, Cas," Dean filled in the details. "And we're like frenemies or something."

            "Frenemies? What's that?" Alternate Cas asked, confused.

            "Doesn't matter. There's no time. We need to speak to him." Real Cas wasn't in the mood to diddle daddle.

            "He's dangerous." They had reached the door. The sound of their stomping reaching a crescendo suddenly stopped and left an eerie silence behind. "And he's here. Probably to kill me. I suggest you two hide."

            The door handle turned, creaking like some effect out of a horror movie. "Hide!" Alternate Cas ordered between his teeth.

            Dean wasn't going to take any chances. He grabbed Real Cas' arm and dragged him behind the sofa. "Dean, we need to talk to him," he urged in a low whisper.

            "I get it Cas but I know what demon me was like and he's a dick." They were huddled there on the floor, behind the heavy black bulk of the sofa's body like two kids hiding from their parents. They could consider themselves insanely lucking if they weren't noticed.

            "You mean more of a dick," Cas replied, more sassy than usual.

            "Hey! What's gotten into you?"

            "Sorry. Knights of Hell got to me."

            And then the door opened. The first sound was the whimpering of a woman crying, begging. "Please don't! Please," she wept and then the loud thud of her being dropped to the floor.

            "What is this?" Alternate Cas asked, truly surprised. The hollow dip in his voice implied disappointment.

            "Cas, Cas, Cas," Demon Dean snickered. "You were sold out! Your little friend Maggie here came running to the big boss. She told me all about your little devil's trap." As soon as he said it, the ceiling cracked. Small particles of dust rained down on them. "Where's the holy water, Cas? Hm? And the blade?"

            Real Cas and Dean watched each other as they listened in, trying to make sense of the sounds. Man, his demon self was pretty terrifying.

            "Oh, you mean this one?" Demon Dean mocked. He must have slammed Cas against a wall. "I should slice your throat with this," he said absently. The knife! Of course! Dean pulled out Ruby's knife and flipping it on the side without the markings, he searched the room's reflection behind him as best he could. He saw himself and Alternate Cas pinned up against the wall with the demon knife just nearly grazing Cas's jaw. Demon Dean didn't exactly dress like Real Dean. He was wearing a tight grey-tshirt and black faded jeans, looking for sure, like his evil twin.

            "I don't think I should let you off so easily, considering you betrayed me. Perhaps I'd pop out one of those beautiful blue eyes of yours and make you eat it." He pointed the tip at Cas's eye but even though he was being threatened, he didn't stop staring Demon Dean down.

            "I didn't betray you, Dean-" Angrily, he was slammed up against the wall again.

            "Oh, really, Cas? And how is that?"

            "I just didn't betray myself."

            "I should kill you. I should gut you in front of your daughter and let my knights spit roast you, you lying son of bitch." Dean wrapped his hand around his throat and squeezed.

            Cas choked out a tortured, "Don't" before being slammed against the wall again.

            Real Dean almost jumped to his feet if his own Cas didn't pull him back down with a soft "Don't" of his own.

            "Please-"

            "You should beg for your life. And you know Cas, you will because that's the kind of dumb poor sap you are. You wouldn't leave Claire alone without a daddy surrounded by my angry Knights, now would you, you sad piece of garbage."

            The real Dean and Cas shared a look of horror.

            Demon Dean released his hold and Cas slumped down to the floor gasping for air. "You're right, Dean. I will beg for my life but I'm also begging you to let the Miltons go. Please, there's no need to hurt them. That's all I wanted to do-"

            "Trap me and force me to release those sorry bastards, you mean?"

            "Yes! I had to try, Dean," Alternate Cas screamed back. What the hell? This guy was going to get himself killed.

            "Oh, I forgot, you have the whole _human_ thing going for you." Demon Dean mocked.

            As soon as he said 'human', Cas and Dean looked again at each other. So, Dean was a demon here and Cas was human? Real Cas seemed even more perplexed by the whole situation but they couldn't exactly talk about it.

            "Yes, Dean. And I can't sit back why you butcher that whole family. Whatever you're looking for, it isn't worth torturing that poor girl Anna and her family-"

            "How would you know, Cas?"

            "Because nothing is!"

            Dean backed off and turned around in frustration. He stifled an angry growl and kicked Maggie or whatever her name was in the stomach.

            "Please, Castiel don't let him kill me!" She pleaded, curling up in a ball.

            "You were gonna let me kill him, you bitch," Dean spat at her.

            Recovering himself, Alternate Cas stood up tall. Composed, he ordered defiantly, "Let her go, Dean."

            The demon turned and laughed. "And what are you going to do about it, Cas?"

            "Dean..." he said walking towards him. Just as he had done earlier, Cas lifted a hand a placed it softly on Demon Dean's cheek.

            He replied with a scoff but it worked. One little touch had seemed to quell his anger. "Leave us," he ordered the others in the room, others that Dean could not see with this small knife but had guessed were there. "Take Maggie here but don't touch her yet." As they left, the room was filled with a soft quiet while the Dean and Cas of this universe stared at one another. "Why, Cas?"

            "I had to, Dean. Please, be merciful."

            "Why should I? I'm not exactly the giving kind. Taking, well that I can do."

            "What do you want, then?"

            "For starters, don't lie to me again. I hate lies," Demon Dean made his way to the desk and poured a drink of the same liquor Cas had been drinking. "If you want something, you come directly to me, ok Cas? No more games."

            "Things don't change much, huh?" The real Dean whispered to Cas.

            "Shh..." was the only reply he received.

            "Ok," Alternate Cas conceded.

            "Secondly. I don't want to fight. I'm tired of fighting and I sure as hell, don't want to fight with you-"

            "I had no intention of hurting you, Dean. I hope you know that." The regrettable cooing was familiar to real Dean. As an outsider, he felt a pity for Cas that in the moment at the other end of his sad apologies, he refused to feel.

            "I know," Demon Dean replied softly. "I know."

            "Perhaps, this is our chance, Dean," Real Cas whispered suddenly. "Without the Knights, perhaps I can overpower him."

            "I wouldn't." Dean held him down.

            Cas glared back at him as if to ask "Why the hell not?'"

            "I missed you," Demon Dean said in a tender voice. What the fuck... Dean couldn't see him, he was leaning against the desk. Why was he talking like that?

            "Dean, I missed you, too."

            The real Dean and Cas stared at each other mildly freaked out. Just a second ago, one of them was about to murder the other bloody and now they were clucking at each other like love birds. But that wasn't the most unnerving thing. It was _them_. Talking to each other like _that._

            "This is weird, Dean," the Real Cas whispered.

            "I think I want to kill myself," he replied. Which one of his selves he wasn't exactly sure. Either would do.

            "Come here," Demon Dean said followed by a weird word in a language Dean himself didn't know. But as soon as the Real Cas heard it, his eyes grew large. Dean had never seen him so shocked.

            "What was that?" Dean asked.

            "Enochian."

            "I got that but what?"

            "You don't want to know..."

            "You should probably smite him now."

            The Alternate Cas or rather Human Cas obeyed. He made his way to Dean leaning against the desk. Out of the field of vision from the knife, the Real Dean couldn't see what was happening but it grew really quiet. He looked at Cas as if to ask what he thought was happening. Cas though, avoided his eyes.

            Suddenly he heard sounds of rustling and the liquor bottle being knocked over. What the hell, Cas? Alternate Cas? Didn't he remember they were hiding behind this sofa? The real Cas was staring at the floor, somewhat horrified. His hearing was after all that of an angel's. He probably could make out better what was going on. Reading his expression, Dean had a good guess at what.

            "Dean..." Alternate Cas attempted to pull away.

            "No, Cas. Let's just-" Demon Dean moaned. "Let's just do the dirty then we can talk. Anything you want, okay?" He must be kissing him desperately now.

            "You don't understand-"

            "I'll free your stupid Miltons, ok babe? and Maggie just- come on, please. I missed you so much." Was he begging? Are you begging him, Dean? _Demon_ Dean? At this point, neither the real Dean or Cas were looking at one another.

            "It's very important," Alternate Cas said. "Someone needs to talk to you. It's...very bizarre."

            "Man, I missed your little nerdy ass. How long has it been?" Demon Dean laughed, exasperated and distracted.

            "A couple months," Cas reported.

            "And you expect me to care about anything else? Let them wait," He said defiantly. "I got a bottle of Johnny Walker. I know I left my Metallica's Black Album here. I got a nice warm fire and my dorky blue-eyed baby," he laughed happily. "All I want to do is drink," he moved closer to Cas. "Rock out." He clasped Cas's collar in his hands. "And make love."

            "He sounds like me," Dean whispered more to himself than to the real Cas. "Just evil and gay...Yup, evil and gay."

            "You two can reveal yourself now," Alternate Cas said. "Please, please do not hurt them, Dean."

            The Real Cas didn't bother to look at him before standing up. Well, he lived a nice life, Dean said to himself before following. The look of shock on Demon Dean's face was almost amusing as it was deeply unsettling for Dean who yet again had to literally look at himself. Even after all the times in this line of work, he had to confront his handsome mug, there was no getting used to it.

            "Hey," Dean greeted as he uncomfortably shifted on his feet.

            His Demon self muttered in reply, "This is one hell of a buzz kill."

***

            And then there they were. Tied to two chairs. Alternate Cas managed to talk his Dean into keeping the other demons out of it. He also managed to talk his real self into letting it happen despite his need for urgency.

            Demon Dean pulled a silver knife from his boot. Oddly, the same place Real Dean kept his own. Without hesitation, he grabbed Dean's arm and cut it.

            "I told you, I'm not a shapeshifter, revenant, or leviathan or whatever. I'm human!" Dean shouted.

            "Leviathan?" Demon Dean cut him one more time for no other reason than maliciousness, towards himself at that.

            "Fuck! Stop, you crazy son of a bitch!"

            "Yeah, well, I just might be going crazy," Demon Dean replied, making his way over to Cas who stared blankly up at him. "Well, wearing my face, okay, I get that. But your sorry ass is going to pay for wearing him."

            "Oh god..." Dean felt like he was going to puke at his own-or rather his Demon self's romantic bullshit.

            "Dean, I told you that they are from an alternate universe," Human Cas said yet again.

            "Yeah, yeah and you really believe that?"

            "I do."

            Demon Dean pushed back the sleeve of Cas' trench coat. "This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you, princess."

            "I doubt that," Real Cas answered.

            Naturally, that didn't make much sense to Demon Dean but he cut him anyway only to find that the little bleeding red gash immediately healed leaving the skin the way he found it. Dean stepped back in shock. "What..."

            "Castiel wasn't lying to you. We are from an alternate universe and we need your help," the Real Cas said to him.

            "What are you?"

            Cas took a deep sigh of frustration. "I'm an angel named Castiel. This is my friend Dean Winchester. He is you from another universe." Cas apparently wasn't enjoying this little sci-fi adventure very much especially the part about explaining himself.

            "Winchester?" Demon Dean turned and looked at his human doppelganger, tied up to the chair.

            "Yeah," the Real Dean said. "Your Cas here had the same reaction. What is our last name different here?"

            "I don't have a last name, handsome."

            "How is that possible?"

            "Dean," the real Cas said. "Look at his arm. He has the Mark of Cain." The angel wasn't lying. Right on Demon Dean's inner forearm was that old familiar mark like a seared backwards f.

            "That explains the demonness," Dean said to him.

            "Mark of Cain?" Demon Dean looked at it and then back at them. "What the hell is Cain?"`

            "If you didn't receive the mark from Cain then who did you get it from?" the Real Cas inquired.

            Demon Dean laughed and turned to face his own Cas. A look passed between them. "You two are pair of freaks, you know that? Since when do I dress like a lumberjack and since when does Cas wear an ugly old trench coat?" He pointed the knife at them.

            "I kinda like it," Human Cas objected.

            "Me too," Real Cas added, evidently defensive. "Of course, I am you and you are me so I guess the too is redundant..." he rambled.

            "Alright!" Demon Dean cut him off. "I am beginning to believe this is you," he said to his Cas.

            "Well, there are SOME differences," Dean interjected.

            "Besides the fact that I'm tacky as all hell?" Demon Dean smirked. Of course, Dean would fuck with himself. That is after all, what he would do.

            "Dean, please. We don't have time for this," the Real Cas said impatiently. "There are at least three Knights of Hell, none of which are Abaddon and no matter how hard I try to tune into Angel Radio, there is nothing and so I'm betting that the longer we drag this out, the more difficult our situation is going to be."

            "Your Cas is not wrong," Demon Dean said. "There are Knights of Hell out there and they have never seen an angel in person. Heck, no one has. I know I haven't in a long, long time and I can't say, I'm a big fan."

            "Me neither buddy but for what it's worth, Cas is a good one," Dean explained.

            "I bet but don't worry about them. The Knights answer to me."

            The Real Cas was suddenly hit with an epiphany. "Oh, I see," he said.

            Dean tugged at the ropes that bound him. "What? What do you see?"

            "It's not the Mark of Cain, it's the Mark of Dean. Lucifer gave you the Mark, didn't he? You're part of the second generation of Man, aren't you?"

            "What?! Ok, you need to untie these freaking ropes and let me out of this chair," Dean squirmed.

            Giving Alternate Cas permission to undo their bondage, Demon Dean confirmed the angel's suspicions. "Lucifer did give me this freaking Mark." He looked down at it with quiet disgust.

            "You killed our brother, didn't you?" Dean stood up. That's the only aspect of this story he could focus on now. "See there are some differences. I would never, ever kill Sam." Why was he so angry? This isn't real. None of this is real.

            "I didn't have a choice-"

            "There's always a choice."

            "Lucifer always had an weird obsession with Sam, alright? It was either me or him." Dean had heard all this before. Cain said the same thing to him in that kitchen when Dean, bullheaded and determined to end Abaddon took on a burden he couldn't carry.

            "So what you sent Sam's soul to heaven and damned your own?"

            "I rather die a thousand times than see my little brother turn into this and if you really are me, you'd know that." He couldn't believe he was actually arguing with himself. "Lucifer was going to have his pound of flesh and at the time, I didn't know any other way."

            "And so you gave him our baby brother?"

            "To save him..." He stalked like an animal across the room, unwilling to look at this human Dean. Knowing himself, Dean knew that he was ashamed.

            "Oh, I'm sure he felt that when you were murdering him."

            "Sam," Demon Dean sat behind the desk. The fight seemed to have left him. His eyes, human eyes staring without focus were pale green and full of listless pain. "Sam, let me."

            "I don't understand," The Real Cas said. "There is no heaven here, is there?" Before he could get his answer, he looked around the library and at the other Cas, realized something but then kept the thought to himself. "Listen. We're trying to end Lucifer in our world. And we believe that there is a book that may be able to assist us. Perhaps, you can help us find it and you can end Lucifer here and exact your revenge and allow us to end him in our own world."

            "Well, Angel Cas, I already know how to end of him."

            "Care to share?" Dean asked himself.

            "That book, the Book of the Damned does hold the answers. This little shit Crowley stole it from me a few years back but don't worry, team. I was able to find out the part about icing the Devil for good," He was very pleased with himself that was obvious.

            "Well?"

            "What do you think I've been doing?"

            "Playing house? Or catch, maybe?"

            Demon Dean stared at himself and smiled evilly. "Nice analogy. I didn't realize I was so funny."

            "You're not that funny," Angel Cas stated.

            "Yeah, I am," Real Dean turned and winked at him.

            After watching their little interaction, Demon Dean had a sudden longing for his Cas. "Cas, babe. Why are you so quiet?" he called out to him.

            Human Cas who had been standing there witnessing the conversation silently, made his way over to him. "I had nothing to contribute," he merely said.

            "You don't have anything to say about Lucifer?" Angel Cas inquired.

            "I don't know anything about him. For one, I've never met him."

            "And heaven?"

            "No."

            Angel Cas raised his eyes to the demon sitting suspiciously at the desk. "There's something you're not telling us."

            "I'm assembling a weapon that can kill Lucifer and his cronies, including that creepy crypt keeper Hades." He paused for drama's sake. This was after all the most important part. Looking directly at his doppelganger, he said "And I'm going to finally save my brother."

            "That sounds more like it," The real Dean chimed.

            Cas however, wasn't satisfied just yet. "Yes, I get that but there's something else you're not telling."

            Demon Dean merely smiled thinly back at the angel, confirming and rejecting nothing. He lifted his eyes to his own Cas as standing beside him and wrapped an arm around his narrow waist. Behind him, the painting of the tree loomed over the scene. Ominous though it was, it could take nothing away from the creature beneath it. He said the Enochian word again and waited for the small kiss his human laid on his lips.

            "With the four of us, especially with the only other Angel in existence, we can end Lucifer for good. And when I'm done here, I'll give the sword to you," Demon Dean said to the angel before him. "And you can cut him down all over again."


	2. Blue Moon

"Follow me, Sam Winchester," Fate still had her book pressed up against her chest. Without the other two, Dean and Cas, the library oddly felt even larger or perhaps, it was because he felt as if he was cornered and out in the open.

            "Are you gonna send me back to the bunker?" Rowena asked of Fate.

            The other woman examined her from head to toe. "I think I rather have you wait here."

            Rowena scoffed. "And do what? Twiddle me thumbs? I'm a busy woman, Fate."

            "I bet you are. Scurrying around and scheming as you witches do!"

            "So you have something against witches? Well I won't stand for your prejudice. Fate with your scurrying around and weaving! At least I'm a player," she announced with much flourish.

            "Rowena, don't think your abnormal shelf life doesn't irk me."

            "Oh, I bet there are things you don't know about me, that would irk you in all the wrong places, missy!"

            Sam couldn't take it anymore. "Please, stop cat fighting. Just scry or do your make up, or whatever it is you do, Rowena. We have a deal, remember?"

            "Oh, Sammy-"

            "Don't call me Sammy."

            "What-Ev-Er. Moose. Jolly Green. The Big W or should I say The Big L for, wait for it. LOSER-"

            "Wow. Thanks, Rowena. I forgot you were so imaginative."

            "You have no idea," she smiled, pleased with herself.

            "You're right," he approached her and to his great surprise, the obstinate woman didn't move. Grabbing her small shoulders, he moved her over to one of many large tables and forced her to sit. "I don't have an idea and I'd like to keep it that way. Now, can we just get through this civilly?"

            "She's the one fighting..." Rowena mumbled.

            "Whatever. Look, it'll be over soon and we'll have the spells, ok?"

            Rowena looked up at him, her yellow and green eyeshadow still impeccable. She pouted like a child but said nothing. Maybe, she is trying the silent treatment. Sam could only hope.

            "Just play on your phone or something," he suggested.

            "Well, about that!" Fate squeaked. "There really isn't any service here."

            Sam let out a deep sigh. Can't he just catch a break?

            "Don't worry about me, Samuel. Go and do your indentured servitude. I'll be right here."

            The way she spoke made Sam feel rather uneasy. "Stay," he ordered pointing a long finger at her.

            "I'm not a dog, you mutt!"

            Leaving Rowena, Sam followed Fate across the room. The library was like a circular tower but at the other end, there was a hallway that seemed not to lead to any more shelves. It stretched out far and the walls were white plastered and unadorned. Without any lights, it was dim but somehow illuminated but what Sam could only guess was a large flickering television screen at the end.

            "Where are we going?" he asked.

            "You'll see," she answered cheerily.

            They reached a great, square shaped room with drop ceiling and gray carpeting. Compared to the beautiful library with its statues and its rows upon rows of brown leather-bound books, this place was startling dull, like an office space without any cubicles. Right in the middle of the room however, were two large televisions. On one, there was a list of names scrolling in gold script and the other, pictures of people flashing. Behind these screens, was what looked like a huge spinning wheel. It pulled grey fibers from the ceiling into its contraption as it spun.

            "What is this?"

            "These are all the people destined to born." The screen passed over a name, an old man's face appeared on the screen and the whole room went black for a second. "And all the people destined to die."

            "And this wheel? Is it powering this?"

            "Yes. You are a smart cookie, Sam Winchester." The room flashed black several more times like an eyes irregularly blinking. "When it goes dark like this-"

            "Their thread is being cut..."

            "Correct."

            "Why are you showing me this?"

            "For starters, to make a point. When you and your brother botched the apocalypse, this...well let's just say we needed a serious renovation. There is a natural order to things. When a person's time is up, their string must be cut and that goes for angels too."

            "Hey. You don't have to tell me, I totally get it."

            "Do you, Ex-blood junkie?"

            "Look. I know that all that lives must die. I get that. But God gave us free will for a reason and not just that, he gave us a conscious and as much as I understand that nature has a will, I can't go against my own nature."

            "And what nature is that?"

            Sam was unsure if he should go on but Fate seemed genuinely curious. "I have to do what I think is right and not just the right order to things, but what is morally right. I'm sorry it screws up the universe and throws it out of whack but I have to follow my heart, you know?"

            Fate watched him, narrowing her eyes, observing. "I see," she said. "I understand."

            "You do?" He was sincerely surprised.

            "Well, your soul has always been your soul Sam Winchester and I guess it was fate that it is what it is."

            The moment between them did not last long. Suddenly, a large thundering sound could be heard from the library, shaking the very floor beneath their feet.

            "What is going on?!" Fate screamed. She looked down the hall. "No, no, no, no, no." She said before suddenly disappearing.

            Something was happening. Something bad. Sam belted down the hallway towards the library, his mind racing. The library was in utter chaos. The ceiling that could not be seen had come into full vision, crashing down to the main floor. White dust hung in the air like a fog. Sam could not make out what else had happened. Surprisingly, the books seemed to be intact but he could not see Rowena through the haze. Did she do something? And where was Fate?

            "You can't be here!" He heard Fate say but he couldn't see her.

            "Oh, I can be anywhere I want to be," a voice answered. Although the voice itself was foreign to him, the cadence was horribly familiar, and he knew immediately who it was.

            "Lucifer, leave," Fate ordered.

            The dust finally settled and Sam saw him there in the body of a man he didn't know and Rowena pinned up against him with an angel blade to her throat. The man's features were hard to determine for his face was rotting away as Lucifer burned through this ill-fitting vessel.

            "Oh, deary me. If it isn't the Prince that was Promised?" he pouted, eyeing Sam. "My nether regions are just aquiver with excitement." He spoke with the same aroused intimacy.

            "Unhand me!" Rowena screamed. She attempted to wiggle away from his grasp but he pressed her harder against him.

            "Shh. You're like a little cockroach, aren't you, Red? No matter what happens, you seem to survive." He almost groaned, his blistered lips brushing seductively against her ear. "I admire that about you, my love."

            In response, Rowena shivered with disgust. "Oh, so now you think you're gonna do the trick? You're all hype, Lucifer," she spat. "You couldn't beat Michael. You couldn't beat Sam. You couldn't beat Amara. What good are you?" Although her words were defiant, Rowena was obviously frightened. She stared at Sam waiting for him to do something.

            "Let her go!" Sam demanded.

            "Oh, I see!" Lucifer bit his bottom lip. The man's pale green eyes watched him, horrifying in the decaying flesh of his face. "You like her better than me, Sammy? I'm jealous. Truly, I am. Heartbroken. Spurned. I should just gut the bitch because you like her so much."

            Under different circumstance, Sam wouldn't care one bit if Rowena was skewered but if the Book of the Damned did have a spell that could kill Lucifer, she was the only person alive who had the skill to cast it. "Why are you here?"

            "I go where I want, when I want. Did you think you could just hide me away? I want to walk in the sun, Sammy dear! Didn't you hear? Girls just want to have fun?"

            "Aren't you a poet?" Rowena sneered.

            "Yes. I am. Always been. I'm a romantic. Prince Charming here can attest to that."

            "You need to leave immediately," Fate ordered. She too was shaken up but she nevertheless attempted to hold her ground.

            "Why? Why should I? Hm?" He pulled Rowena's hair.

            "My sis-"

            "MY SISSSTERRRSSS! Awwww. Bitch, your sisters are dead," he abruptly threw Rowena on the ground. The witch quickly scurried to her feet and hid behind Sam. "And I'm here to finish the job. You know, I'm going for the hat trick."

            Fate took several steps back, bumping into the corner of a bookshelf, clutching at her book even more tightly than usual. "You're lying," she said not entirely convinced herself.

            "No. I don't lie. Well, I do," he shrugged playfully. "But not this time."

            "Why now? Why go after Fate now?" Sam asked. He needed to buy time. He needed to figure a way out.

            "Because I happen to have it on good authority that Destiny's child here are colluding with the Winchesters," he twirled the blade around and around like a girl twisting her hair around her finger.

            "Who's authority is that?"

            "My own. Doesn't get better than that." He sauntered over to Fate and looked down at her. In a soft and intimate voice, he said, "Kelly and Beyoncé are dead. It's finally your time to shine, Michelle."

            "You can't-" Without a moment's hesitation, he jammed the angel blade straight through the book and into her stomach.

            "NO!" Sam screamed but it was useless. He couldn't take on Lucifer even if he was in that putrefying vessel. Blood gushed from Fate's mouth, as her lifeless body slumped to the floor.

            "Well that was fun," Lucifer said in a bored and monotonous voice. "So, since we're playing 21 questions. Isn't it my turn? Well, I don't have 21 questions per se. Just 3, really." he looked at the blood on the blade as he spoke as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.  

            "Shoot," Sam tried his best to conceal his fear. Rowena huddled behind him, breathing heavily. He could almost smell the terror coming off her. And if he could, then Lucifer certainly did.

            "One, why are you working with that awful skank? Do you really think she's prettier me?" He pouted.

            "None of your business."

            "I happen to think it is, Sammy," Lucifer stepped over Fate's dead body. "Two, where's Romeo and my little sister Juliet, hm? I've wanted to end those guilt ridden, The Smiths listening little fairies since-well, forever."

            "None of-"

            "Right. My business," he stepped over more debris towards Sam. "Again! I happen to think it is!" he smiled. A piece of skin flaked from his cheek. "Oh shoot! Look at me! I'm just a hot mess!"

            "What's your third question?"

            "Oh, that's the one I'm literally falling a part to know."

            "What?"

            "Why are you so dreamy, Sam Winchester? I mean seriously. You're so..." His eyes dropped to Rowena. "Chivalrous." And in a second, the playfulness in his expression dissolved into contempt.

            "I ask myself that everyday," he heard Crowley suddenly say. Grabbing Sam's arm, he was gone with him and Rowena just as quickly as he appeared, leaving Lucifer quite literally in their dust.

***

[Alternate Universe///Several Years Ago]

 

When Castiel was a child, he was plagued with nightmares-or rather, the same nightmare. As a man, he could no longer remember the details of those horrible evenings growing up but he could vaguely recall the sensation of fear, as if it left a queasiness the way an atomic bomb leaves a cancerous sickness in it's aftermath. The memory of that bright white light, the terror, all of it was distant now.

            But the fear he felt this night would come the closest. The quiet, predictable life he led was to be quickly snatched away from his hands along with the world as he knew it and every nightmare that he had ever dreamed of and every nightmare he couldn't conceive, forced themselves into his life as they forced themselves into his hotel, dragging every patron and every single employee, including himself and his 18 year old daughter onto their knees like a line up of victims for a firing squad.

            People wailed and wept. They pleaded with the men and women who pointed semi-automatic guns at them, some holding knives, one even carrying a syringe. He knew now that they weren't men and women at all but demons.

            It wasn't just the nightmare that forced itself into his life that night. He did as well.

            As soon as the others had taken their places, lording over the whimpering, he came striding in. His hands were down to his sides but he held a silver colt in his right. He looked pleased with himself, a slight smile on his face. His confidence alone was frightening, the way his mere presence commanded the room.

            He was devilishly sure and devilishly handsome and he was tall and well-formed. He examined the faces of all those lined up as if looking for someone in particular.

            Castiel was separated from his daughter, his secretary Maggie, and the manager Cliff between them. Although he was unable to see her face from behind the long, pale blonde hair, he knew that Claire wasn't crying. His concern for her was greater than his fear of this strange man and those who followed him.

            It must have pissed him off when Castiel turned to look at his daughter for the next thing he felt was a kick to the gut.

            Castiel bent over in pain. The man chuckled and then left him there as if he were bored of him now.

            "Name's Dean," he said, pacing in front of the line up. "When I'm in the room, you pay attention, capisce?"

            A woman whispered somewhere, "his eyes!" in horror. Castiel looked up at this Dean, clad in all black with eyes to match. Castiel's mind must have gone blank then. He didn't know what to think. What was he? Some sort of monster?

            "That's right," Dean said. "I'm a demon and so are all these right here," he pointed the gun at the men and women lining the walls. "Now. I don't like to play games," he sauntered back and forth. "I'm looking for someone. Someone special. Once I find them, the rest of you will die. But! Before you all panic, you have a choice here," he stared at each one of them, guiltless and even proud of his crimes. "If you resist, you and everyone else here dies slow but, if you play along, we'll make it quick."

            A din fell over the room. One of the demons lining the wall let at laugh. It hung like a foreboding bell over their silence.

            "You can't do this!" Claire shouted at him, attempting to get to her feet. Cliff, a good man, portly, awkward and a friend of Cas's, smartly held her back.

            "Ohh!!!" Dean laughed. "Yes, I can little girl." He walked over to her and knelt.

            "Please, don't hurt her," Cas begged.

            Dean examined her closely, eye to eye. Claire, strong-willed and determined refused to look away. She was all spite and anger. "You're not the one," he said after several moments.

            "What are you talking about?" She spat.

            "I'm here for someone special, someone different. They might not even know it yet..."

            "I've always felt different," some guy suddenly said.

            Dean took one look at him and rolled his eyes. "You're loser, that's all. Well, this is the most uninspiring pack of sorry sons of bitches I've ever seen," he said to one of his demons. "Alright, we're gonna need to do this systematically. I know for a fact one of you bastards is the one I need so, who is in charge here?"

            "I am," Cas answered without deliberation but he didn't look up at Dean, for some reason, he couldn't make himself. "This is my hotel."

            "What's your name?" Dean asked, making his way over to him.

            "Castiel Novak."

            "Well, Cas, can I call you Cas?"

            "Does it matter if I give you permission?" He finally raised his eyes to at him. Dean was looming over Castiel, his own eyes no longer black but a brilliant milky green. He almost looked human.

            Dean grinned. He was disturbingly beautiful. "Not really, Cas. Good job here by the way. You must be one rich little fortune cookie."

            Castiel didn't know how to respond to that. "If you need to hurt someone, spare them and hurt me instead."

            "Oh, I'll hurt you." Dean pulled him up by his collar so tightly, Cas couldn't breathe. "Don't worry about that. Now, I've had a long trip, finding this place, getting here. I think I need a break, some me time, you understand? Relax with a bottle of beer, some tunes, and a little bit of torture."

            "Leave him alone!" Claire screamed.

            "Honey!" Cas pleaded. "Please be quiet."

            "Yeah, honey, be quiet," Dean mocked. "Daddy's gotta take one for the team." He tossed Cas halfway across the room. Pain radiated throughout his body as it slammed against the hardwood floor. "I want all you sorry assholes to take a good look at him now. Last time, you're gonna see you good pal, the friendly little neighborhood innkeeper whole again. Shove the rest in the ballroom. Don't hurt them until I find the one need."

***

            Dean smacked him face first into his desk. Blood from his busted lip filled Cas's mouth, warm and tasting of iron. With a motion of his hand, a fire kindled in the hearth. Castiel was so scared he felt as if he might pass out but surprisingly, he didn't. Grabbing both of Cas's hands, he placed them so that he was clutching the other side of the desk. "How old are you?"

            "What?" When he opened his mouth, the blood trickled onto the dark wood surface and glittered in the firelight.

            "How old are you?"

            "39."

            "I guessed as much." Dean began to undo the buckle of Cas's belt. "You know, the best part of torture ain't the pain," he whispered into his ear. "You'd be surprised how much pain the human body can take. The best part of torture." The belt made a hiss as Dean unthreaded it. "Is the shame." He began to undo the buttons of his pants. "Now I'm gonna tell you a secret but you can't tell anyone, ok buddy? It may surprise you but I got a soft spot for women, you see. Women get put down, humiliated, raped and then after everything, after all the shit, the violence done to them is somehow magically justified." He dipped his middle finger in the small pool of Cas's blood. "They were asking for it. 'They can take it, they're strong!'" He placed the finger in his mouth and sucked it clean. "And men, white, middle aged and rich, men like yourself, they always seem to be the ones doing all the bad, don't you think?"

            "What are you doing?" Cas could hardly speak with his face smashed against the table with such force.

            Dean pulled his pants and his underwear down. The air against the bare skin of his legs and rear caused a shiver to spasm throughout his body. "I'm gonna spank you that's what I'm going to do," the demon answered.

            The belt suddenly came slapping down. The tingling shock and pain washed over him like electric water, sharp and agonizing. It came smacking down again, hurting and stinging. He could feel the red hot humiliation of it all inching up his neck. The pain though, it was something else entirely.

            And again, it came thrashing, smacking, beating, throbbing. But Oh! It felt...almost...good.

            And then Again. And Again. And Again it came. Cas couldn't hold it back, he let out a guttural yelp, mixed with pleasure and pain. Dean stepped back to admire the sweet seductive curve of the small of Castiel's back, to admire his work and the red bands that formed across the skin of his ass, and of course, to amuse himself at the pitifulness of this exposed man, draped over the table will his testicles hanging there, exposed and vulnerable to his will.

            Without Dean holding him there, Cas stepped back and collected himself. Behind him, the demon laughed as if he had just seen the funniest thing. "Look at that!" he said with condescension and satisfaction. "You're hard, aren't you?"

            Castiel was ashamed to admit that he was. Dean grabbing his shoulder, turned him around and glanced at the erection that inevitably poked him against his stomach. "You're pathetic," he chuckled. "Here you are, getting humiliated and all you can say is 'please, sir, can I have another?'"

            The truth was, Cas didn't know what to say. He just stared at Dean, his face glowing in the light of the fire. Up close to him like this, despite everything he had done, Cas was certain he had never seen someone so beautiful. His eyes were large and round and olive green with huge round pupils. His lips were plump and raw as if had been sucking. Cas could even see, dotting his cheekbones and nose an array of freckles. He almost forgot where he was.

            Dean must have had the same thought for he cupped Castiel's face in his hand and examined him closely. "Not bad," he concluded, letting him go with a push. "You want it, don't you? You fag," Dean grinned.

            Cas wasn't going to let him win. He glared at him, trying his best to ignore the shame. "I want you to go."

            But it was all a game, really. "I can be gentle," the demon teased. Like a cat, Dean pressed his forehead against his and with a voice soft with seduction, he cooed, "Why would you want me to go, when I can make you cum?" as he grazed his palm against the tip of Cas's erection.

            "You're evil," he protested.

            "And?" Before Cas could answer, Dean tilted his head and examined him once more. "You are really beautiful, aren't you? And sincere. And dumb."

            "If I let you, will you promise to leave the others alone?"

            "Let me? You think I need your permission?" Dean pressed himself against him. His body was firm and strong and his cock, pressed up touching his own was hard. Cas let out a whimper as the sensations washed over him. "See, you might even die if I don't give it to you. We wouldn't want that now, would we?"

            "Dean..." Cas grimaced.

            Whatever he just did, it had a strange effect on Dean. A light flashed in his eyes. "I like that," he said. "I like the way you say my name. Dean," he mimicked his deep, raspy voice.

            "Just don't hurt them, please. I'll do whatever you want."

            "Say my name," he ordered.

            "Dean..."

            "Tell me the truth," He pulled Cas' hair back, digging his fingers into his scalp, even that felt strangely good.

            "What?"

            "Do you me to fuck you?"

            "Yes." Cas just answered without thinking. It was so obvious there was no point in lying.

            "Say it. Say 'Dean, fuck me'," He said, mimicking Cas's voice.

            Was he losing his mind for this was truly insane. It was one thing to be sodomized, he thought. Castiel had never had sex with anyone but his late wife before. But like this? With a stranger and a demon at that? It was all so horrible and yet he couldn't deny it. The monster had his claws in him. And where he tore at the skin, an infection had set in and was creeping throughout his blood stream and making him sick. And hungry.

            If he didn't comply, things could get worse, couldn't they? Dean could grow bored and begin hurting the others, right? He needed to play along. He needed to obey. Right?

            But Castiel knew that even as he reasoned with himself that he was doing it to protect the others, the truth was he wanted him. He wanted to be near Dean, to feel his hands, his body, his flesh, his cock, his hot breath on his lips, his skin, his voice.

            In truth, he wanted Dean to fill him up and drink him down.

            The demon placed a soft kiss on his chin and then on his lips. It was a surprisingly romantic gesture and it was enough to make Castiel lose his mind. "Fine," he said, his voice thick and deep with pain or lust or whatever. "Dean, fuck me."    

***

[Alternate Universe///Present Day]

            Dean pushed his gun in the back of his jeans, snug and tight. He had already checked Ruby's knife, his sliver blade, and all the other tiny weapons that he had kept hidden on his person.

            "Dean, there is no reason for that," the angel said. He was sitting near the small, round dining table, his hands folded patiently on his lap, his eyes coasting about the room and landing on nothing in particular.

            It was a beautiful room to be sure, one of the many this huge hotel had. At the center was a striking king sized canopy bed with dark red blankets and cream silk sheets. There were more shelves with books upon books. There was a bay window with black velvet curtains that led out to a balcony and fine art on the walls. There was champagne on ice and a hot tub in the bathroom. Hell, it was probably the nicest hotel room Dean had ever been in his life and it only made him feel more uneasy to think the two of them were holed up here after being presented to his demon doppelganger's gang of evil Knights. For some reason, the thought of dying in style made Dean feel even more perturbed.

            "Do you really think any of those will be good enough to take down even one Knight of Hell?" Castiel stated. He seemed annoyed.

            "Well, I'm not about to walk around naked," Dean protested. "I'll go down but not without fight."

            "Whatever makes you feel better..."

            "Hey, what's gotten into you, Cas? Are you mad at me or something? I didn't drag you here. That was Fate if you didn't forget."

            "I'm not mad at you, Dean," he said. But he was. Dean knew him well enough to know that he was.

            "Yeah, you are. How do I know? Because I know you. Just like I know that a good day for you is a Simon & Garfunkel cassette, a marathon of Maury, and watching old men play chess at the park. Just like I know that when you're mad, you sit there like a girl that got dumped at the prom."

            "It may surprise you, Dean but I don't think you know me as well as you may think," he replied.

            "Right. Humor me." Dean went to one of the shelves and pulled out three different books. He quickly read their titles. "Pick the one you think would be the most interesting."

            "Now why would I do that, Dean?"

            He placed each of them in front of him in a row. "Like I said, humor me." The first book, with a cotton blue cover was entitled: _The Art of Hessian Warfare_. The second, white and dirty was named: _The Complete Poetry of W. B. Yeats_ and the third, a black book with silver letters was called: _The Mysterious Death of Brigitte Ruby._ "Go ahead, pick one."

            Cas looked up at Dean, irritation evident in his eyes. Without saying anything he lifted his hand to pick up the book he preferred but at the same moment he touched it, Dean had pushed it back down.

            "Of course, you'd go for the poetry, Cas. You're so predictable," Dean said snatching it away and gathering the other two.

            "That was obvious, Dean and therefore a cheap shot."

            "Was it? Which one would I read, hm?"

            Cas was at a lost. "I don't know."

            "You know why? Because it's a trick question. I don't read," he put the books back in the shelf. "It's bad for the eyes. That's why I'm a better shot than Sammy."

            "You're lying." Cas sighed. "I've seen you reading Vonnegut, Murakami, and Hemingway to name a few."

            "Touché Cas but, it doesn't change that fact that you're frilly ass would always go for the poetry every time."

            "What can I say? I like melody and the beauty of the unsaid," he gave him a challenging look.

            "Whatever Sylvia Plath," Dean threw himself in the seat across from him. "It also doesn't change the fact that I know you're mad. So talk to me."

            Cas begrudgingly gave in. "I don't like this place," he reported. "I didn't like it the minute I got here."

            "I don't like this place, either."

            "It's more than that, Dean."

            "Then what is it?"

            "This place...feels...There's no heaven, Dean. Or at least, I can't seem to locate it."

            "You heard me, the other me, you're the only angel maybe there aren't any angels here."

            "There's no time for you to play stupid, Dean," he said in a low voice, almost a mumble.

            "I'm not playing, Cas. Thanks! But okay, you're right. There's something weird. If Lucifer is here then there are angels but maybe they're all dead."

            "I'm beginning to think that..."

            "Ok, so it sucks. I'm sorry but that's nothing to really be so uneasy about."

            "Dean," he faced him, somewhat angrier now. "I am an angel."

            "Yes, you are buddy and that's awesome."

            "I don't have a soul, you idiot. Don't you remember what I told you when Rowena proposed this plan? All the souls as they are were created before the earth was formed."

            It began to dawn on Dean now, what was so strange. Human Cas. No heaven.

            "I can't be human. Which means that other Cas was at one point, an angel."

            "Do you think he's lying?"

            "I don't think he knows that he was an angel, Dean. Much in the same way Anna didn't remember being an angel."

            "Holy shit, Cas. Anna! He um..." He searched his head desperately for the words. "Well, when I showed up, he thought I was the other Dean. He tried to seduce me and trap me in a devil's trap but of course, it didn't work. And you heard him, the other Cas was trying to get Dean to release the Miltons, that was Anna's last name."

            "So you think it's the angel Anna?"

            "Maybe but she probably isn't an angel, at the moment at least..."

            Cas looked more troubled than before. "I have a feeling Demon Dean is planning something..."

            "Do you think he's using Cas?"

            "I don't know...maybe..." He was unsatisfied. Still there was something missing.

            "If he's looking for former angels, that could explain why they know each other," Dean mused. "Should we try to save you, I mean...the other Cas?"

            "Dean, I don't think he's going to hurt him. You saw them in that study, they're all over each other. Not to mention..." Cas merely tilted his head as if that was enough to communicate the 'thing.' Whatever that was.

            "Okay, Cas. I bite. Not to mention what?"

            "Human Cas can't speak Enochian but he calls him..." It was like he couldn't say it, it was too disgusting of a word.

            "I don't speak it either so I guess, I'm in the dark too."

            "It means, 'my heart', Dean. It's very intimate, that word. I've never heard an angel or a person say it to another. It's sort of embarrassing to witness, like looking at someone naked..."

            "So Demon Dean loves him?" Dean threw himself back in his chair. "Alternate universes are weird, man. And now while we sit here waiting to be the next playthings for a pack of knights of hell, our doppelgangers are probably having crazy, creepily romantic gay sex. Correct that, demonic gay sex. So it's even better. Great. And to think I thought this was going to be fun..."

            Cas let out a small laugh. "Is it ever?"

            "Still didn't answer my question," Dean said.

            "I did."

            "No, you're mad at me, particularly me."

            "How do you know that?" Again, the challenging look. He always widened his eyes and pointed his chin up a bit when he wanted to stand up to Dean.

            "Cause you're calling me mean names, that's how I know." This was as good a time as any to check out the champagne. He could use the buzz.

            "I'm sorry, Dean. I don't think you are an idiot who makes bad jokes that rely far too heavily on outdated movies and banal cultural references."

            "Wow, say it like you mean it, Cas."

            "Okay, you're a little stupid sometimes and even though I don't find you funny, the frequency of your bad jokes is directly related to how happy you are at any given moment and although they are confusing and strange, it pleases me to hear them."

            "Because..."

            "Because..." His eyes coasted about the room, still troubled. "Because it means you're happy, Dean. Please do try to keep up."

            Dean popped the bottle of champagne and let the bubbly fall over his hands. "Wow, I love you too, Cas," he said dryly. When the angel ceased the tireless roaming of his gaze and looked straight at Dean, he was met with a sarcastic smirk. "Care for a drink?"

***

"Care for a drink?" Crowley said, lifting up the bottle of scotch. "Don't worry after that whole debacle with The Darkness, I replaced the spirits with my own. Call it demonic possession of your liquor cabinets." The three of them were standing in the bunker. Shaken up but still quiet about it. Rowena went immediately to primping and sneering at her son while Sam gave Crowley a tired 'sure' and accepted the drink, which he was surprised to find, was actually quite good.

            "Well, now that you are out of that pickle, I think I'll take my medal now," He said taking a seat across from Sam.

            "How did you find us?"

            "You know moose, you always ask that question and I always have an unacceptable answer for it so lets just gloss over the boring details now, and get to the juicy bits. Why did I have to rescue my favorite cloven beast from the claws of Satan, yet again? Oh of course you as well, Sam," he chattered away, staring straight at him and sipping his drink.

            "Oh, you think you're so clever, Fergus. Everything you have including that crafty wit of yours you inherited for me," Rowena sashayed over to her son and plucked the scotch from his hands gingerly.

            "I thought I inherited it from one of the many possible paternal candidates you've entertained, mother."

            "You say that like it's a bad thing, Fergus."

            "Sometimes, I think I've met every single threshold of pain," Sam chimed in. "Until I find myself having to listen to you two banter back and forth."

            "Oh, look at that, Fergus. The wee little deer thinks he can sup at the big boys table!" Rowena finished the rest of the scotch in one gulp and set it down in front of her son. "You're gonna have to improve upon that wit of yours before you hurt yourself, Samuel."

            "Yeah, well, if I have to spend anymore time with you, I hope it's fatal."

            Crowley lifted his empty glass and stared at it forlornly. "I always knew you were a man after my own heart, moose. So tell me before we bicker ourselves to death, where is squirrel?" He placed the glass back on the table with a bored sigh.

            Rowena, sitting between them was quick to tell her son that the plan did not include him but it made very little difference. At this rate, if she had wanted her son to do something in particular, she ought to request the opposite.

            "I didn't ask you," Crowley said, looking directly at Sam. "Where is Dean?"

            "With Cas," he answered with obvious elusiveness.

            "Oh please, you honestly expect me to buy that stinking pile of dogshit?"

            "Y-yes?" Yeah, it was a long shot. But whatever.

            "Sam. When is the last time I screwed you or your brother over-"

            "The Mar-"

            "Ok! SHUSH!" Crowley interjected. "I didn't expect you to have an answer so quickly... I need more scotch...But seriously, Sam. Where is Dean besides getting 'touched by an angel'?"

            Sam wrinkled his nose at the vividness. "Fine. Rowena-"

            "HEY!" She shrieked. "Fergus is not to be involved in this plan. How many times do I have to tell you? It is MY plan. It is a good plan but not with him. The little devil cannot be trusted."

            "Neither can you, Rowena," Sam remarked. "Besides, we could probably use all the help we can get."

            The witch literally put her high-heeled foot down. "I said no."

            "I don't care what you say, Rowena. Fate took Dean and Cas to an alternate universe so they could uncover lost spells from the Book of the Damned."

            "Sam," the witch said in a small voice. "I hate you."

            "I'm sure he feels the same, you haggard whore," Crowley stood up to refill his glass.

            "Oh, Fergus. You can call me a whore, fine. I have a very wide and insatiable sexual appetite but you cannot possibly think I'm haggard." When Crowley didn't say anything, she began to work herself up. "I'm not! Look at me! I'm not haggard. Right, Sam?" Rowena turned to face him. "I'm not haggard, am I?"

            "Uh....." he stared at her or rather gaped. "No...?"

            "You don't have to lie, Sam," Crowley sipped at his new drink.

            "You can't possibly-Sam, if you and I were not on opposite sides of the spectrum of utterly stupid, do gooder," she gestured to him as if he were something disgustingly dull. "To powerfully and wonderfully wicked like myself, you would totally bed me, would you not?"

            "I'm not sure he's into MILFs, mother or should I say GILFs...or great, great, great GILFs..."

            "Sam!" Rowena demanded an answer.

            "Sure, why not, Rowena" was all he could say.

            She turned back to her son, satisfied. "See! The strapping young lad has eyes, after all!"

            "Unfortunately, I also have ears...."

            "So this plan of yours, you think that there's a spell in the Book that can kill Lucifer?" Crowley said, getting back to the topic at hand. "Hm... Interesting. The macabre little tome never disappoints. Well, it may work. Now that all three of the Fates are dead, are you sure that Team Destiel has a way back into the real world?"

            The thought had occurred to Sam that without Fate, his brother and Cas could be stuck there but he hadn't had time to truly process and think through the situation. "I'm not sure. Fate said that they had to find this spinning wheel and spin it and that it would bring them back here."

            "Hm...I see... In that case, Fate might not be necessary. Although if I had to guess where the pair would pop up, it would be that library. "

            "That would be the logical guess," Rowena added.

            Sam rose to his feet. "Alright so let's just go back there."

            "Are you insane?! With Lucifer still there!" Crowley screamed, his face turning red like a semi-ripe tomato. "No, and besides without Fate or her sisters there's no way to get there. The only way I was able to enter the library is because one of them zapped me there just before she died under the obviously false pretense that I'd save her sister..."

            "Crowley, where is the library then?"

            "Well, not here in this plane but there are several rather mysterious ways to get to it from my understanding. The main door can be found at the back of a rather, unpleasant, reeking cave in Greece-and I highly don't recommend it unless you want to smell like our good friend Lucifer's ass crack for a week. Another is in some hill in Mongolia as well as others scattered about; the Serengeti, Columbia, yadda, yadda, places... but the closest would be a nightclub in Chicago."

            "So... they could end up anywhere..." Sam threw himself back down into his chair, dejected. There really wasn't anything he could do but wait, right? That and hope that when Dean and Cas returned that Lucifer isn't standing there waiting for them.

***

A heavy knock at the door jolted Dean awake. The hotel room was dark save for a blue light flooding into the room from the balcony. Across from him, Cas sat reading the book of poems, not looking up. "You didn't have a nightmare, someone is at the door," he reported.

            Dean didn't remember falling asleep. The last thing he could recall was telling Cas about the time him and Sam snuck into Yankee stadium and got caught but some old guy who sold popcorn. Cas seemed rather amused when Dean called a fly ball a can of corn remarking that there was a curious beauty to the sport and vernacular of baseball. They had a shared moment of silent appreciation for game before Dean somehow slipped into unconsciousness.

            But he was not at home in his bed. In his room. Or even in his world. Hell, maybe there wasn't even baseball here. The heavy knock resounded off the thick wooden walls. And then impatiently, the person on the other side grabbed the knob and shook the door violently.

            "I locked it," Cas said still not looking up.

            Dean made it to his feet. From the corner of his eyes, he saw the more peculiar thing. Through the window, he could see the moon large and round. His dad used to call it a Harvest moon when it swelled to thrice its size but it wasn't yellow like he remembered-it was a vivid, bright cerulean blue, almost the same color as Cas's eyes.

            "Yes, I've noticed the color of the moon," he said as if reading Dean's mind. "From what I gather from the references in these books, it always has been blue," he finally looked up. "You'd be surprised how the hue of one single satellite has profound effects on the nature of man and mankind's art. _Starry Night_ 's colors are all very different than our own."

            Again the knock and the angry rattling. "I'm going to get that, Sister Wendy."

            A woman stood there with platinum blonde hair, dressed head to toe in black and leather. She flashed her demon eyes at Dean so he wouldn't get the wrong idea, "Boss wants to see his little human clone," she said. Castiel set the book aside and stood up as if to go with them. "No, not you. He said only Dean."

            "It's okay, Cas," he assured him. Naturally, the angel didn't seem too happy with the arrangement but reluctantly sat back down and resumed reading.

            Following the demon down the long hotel halls, Dean winked and smiled at her comrades lining the walls as they in turn, attempted to stare him down. She brought him to a room adjacent to the study he woke up in.

            Inside, his doppelganger sat staring ahead at a flame lapping in the fireplace. He wore nothing but his black jeans and held nothing but a crystal glass of whiskey.

            This room was grander than the one Dean had just left with a fireplace of it own, although smaller than the one in the study. Across from it was what looked like a dining table with six chairs made of painted black wood. On the other side of the room was a large, four poster bed of the same material. Beneath the heavy, deep purple covers, human Castiel slept.

            The blonde shut the door behind them, leaving them alone. "So, what's this all about?" He asked.

            "I figured we needed to talk," Demon Dean replied glancing up at him. "You and the angel are here for a reason, right?"

            "Well, I was hoping we could talk earlier but I see you had more important business to take care of," he quipped, gesturing to the man sleeping in the bed.

            His demon self laughed at that. "Sit," he said. "No, that isn't it. I didn't want to talk with the angel there. Why do you think I asked for you to come alone?"

            Dean cautiously took a seat next to him.

            "Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. I need your help. Besides, I like your face."

            "You couldn't put a shirt on before you called me over, Fabio?" Dean joked.

            "Are you trying to tell me your own nakedness bothers you?" the demon smirked. "I don't know-I don't where it is so whatever."

            "Well, care to share the secret to ending Lucifer since we aren't getting the book anytime soon?"

            "Quick to it, huh? I should have expected that. You are me after all-"

            "Minus a nasty mark and a pair of black eyes, yeah sure."

            "That a couple thousand millennia too, I bet."

            They shared a look. "Yeah, I forgot about that," Dean said.

            His demon self, leaned forward, staring again at the fire as if it were talking to him. He seemed entranced, lost in thought. "Tell me about him."

            "Cas?"

            "No, Sam. Tell me about Sam." His voice was soft and full of a sadness of which Dean himself was painfully familiar.

            "That's right, you haven't seen him for...for a long time. Well..." What was he to say? Where could he even begin? There weren't really words enough to fill in the gap of a thousand years let alone two or three.

            "He's big but I'm sure you remember that," Dean began. "He's smart and brave and man, he's probably the toughest son of a bitch I've ever met, way tougher than us," he let out a chuckle, aware of bittersweet tenderness of his words "The things I've seen that guy endure. And he's nice-well, more than nice. He's a good man, the best... and I guess people always say that about people but with Sam, it's different. He never gives up on people and he never gives up hope. Where we come from, Sam is hero. He sacrificed himself and saved the world."

            "Is he dead?" He looked up, disappointment and pain brimming beneath the darkness in his eyes. Dean knew himself. What was looking at him wasn't a demon. And he knew what that was all about. Even if Sam wasn't alive here, it was somehow comforting to know that he was somewhere else, even if it was a universe far, far away.

            "He did die, I guess but Cas brought him back. Botched it but in the end, we worked it out and yeah, Sam is good now. The big geek likes to read books and watch artsy films," Dean smiled. "And eat lettuce. And kale."

            "Cas did that? Why?" He seemed honestly perplexed.

            "Because he's our family-not literally but he's family where it counts. We're brothers, the three of us. What? Cas wouldn't do something like that for you?"

            Demon Dean turned and looked at the man sleeping peacefully in the bed. Human Cas must be a deep sleeper. "Probably. If he could. How do you know him, anyway? Cas? Being he's got wings and all?"

            "Man, ain't that a story for another day. Let's just say, the angels wanted me to play a part in some grand pissing match and Cas was one of their foot soldiers. When he learned that a bunch of people would die in the aftermath, he joined me and my brother in stopping it."

            "Hmm...sounds exciting," Demon Dean took a drink of the whiskey and then offered it to him.

            Human Dean took the glass readily and drank. Pulling out Ruby's knife, he went on, "Hell, the first time I remember laying eyes on Cas, I shoved this thing right in his chest! He just stared me down and pulled it out. Man, I almost pissed myself," he laughed.

            Demon Dean laughed along. "Funny," he said. "First time I laid eyes on my Cas, I kicked him the stomach."

            "Aren't we charming?" Dean smiled. How weird, sharing a drink with his demon doppelganger, reminiscing and telling tales.

            "Had him for the first time that night too," He smirked and shook his head as if to say 'good times.'

            "Well, it ain't like that between me and my Cas and hey, don't think it doesn't weird us the hell out to see our twins kissing on each other. Puts Freaky Friday on a whole new level."

            Demon Dean reached for the decanter of whiskey resting on the side table and poured two more glasses. "Now, I don't get that. Honestly, I don't." He handed his him one.

            "Simple. I don't swing that way."

            "How is that possible?"

            "I don't know. The moon where we are is white and it's blue here," he shrugged. "Handsome, it creeps me out to think alternate universe me is banging Cas. Frankly, I wish I could wipe it from my mind."

            Demon Dean merely watched him. He knew his face and he knew the look he was giving him meant that he thought everything that came out of his mouth was nothing but bullshit. "I'm going to tell you a secret, handsome," he lifted the glass as if he were saluting him. "After the first hundred years, you stop giving a fuck what people think about you and after the next hundred years, you start realizing the bullshit in policing your emotions and your desires," he took a drink. "I know you because I know me. You're repressed and compensating."

            "Right!" Dean tried to laugh it off. Repressed and compensating. Dean had to admit, it wasn't the first time someone accused him of being those things. It was certainly strange though, hearing it from his own mouth.

            "Look at me, at what you can become. I'm comfortable in my skin and hey, maybe one day good looking, you could be too," he winked at him. "You're trying to tell me you never ever once wanted to kiss Cas? Maybe not some random ass guy but Cas, you never want to just try it, see what it felt like?"

            "Why Cas? What makes you think I'd want to kiss him?"

            "Outside of Sam, if you had to pick one other person as the number one person your sorry ass cared for, who would it be? And don't say your parents because that's a lame ass cop out."

            Dean didn't know what to say. "Well, there's my surrogate fath-"

            "Is he alive?"

            "No."

            "Did it rip you up when he died? Did you think about punching your own card and just giving up?"

            Fuck. Dean felt like he had pushed himself into a corner. He remembered how he was he thought he had lost Cas, how torn up he was, how he drank like a fish and hated everything. "Ok, you're right. It's Cas. Besides Sam, it's Cas. But so what?"

            "So what?" He took another drink. "How do you think I know that?"

            "Because I told you."

            "No, you said he fought with you to help save the world and you're trying to save the world again and that's why you're here. You said you're like family but you know that doesn't imply that besides your little brother, he's the single most important person to you."

            He didn't have an answer.

            "I knew because it's the same with me. That's how. You and I, we're just built that way."

            "That doesn't mean I want to have sex with him."

            "Fine. Let's make a deal-"

            "I don't make deals with demons," Dean interrupted.

            "For some reason, I think you're definitely bullshitting me on that one."

            "Fine! What's the deal?" Just because he was going to hear him out, doesn't mean he was going to go through with it.

            Demon Dean smirked and leaned back into the sofa. "I take you to the basement and show you what you came here for."

            "And?"

            "Kiss him," he gestured to Castiel, sleeping soundly.

            "Why, hm? Why do you care so much?"

            "Because don't think it doesn't weird me out that me and Cas in some screwed up alternate universe are just friends. It just doesn't add up."

            "And so you think that if I go over there and lay a peck on his lips that somehow, the queer sleeping beauty in my soul will be just roused with passion."

            "You didn't have to put it so vividly but yeah and not just a peck, you grade schooler. A real deep kiss."

            "I swear you just want to get off on watching your clone make our with your boyfriend." Demon Dean shrugged. He knew he had won. "Fine. I'll do it but only because I didn't come all this way to be shanked by a Knight of Hell." He stood up, sighing and saying to himself that he couldn't believe he was going to do this. He marched over to the bed with not a thought; he couldn't quite think for some reason. Maybe it was the nerves.

            Cas was lying there, still deep asleep. His hair was tousled and part of his bare chest was exposed, a slight five o'clock shadow somehow made his features more delicate, his cheekbones more prominent and his long neck graceful and strangely more obviously naked.

            Dean sat down at the edge of the bed, taking a deep breath but it did no good. Why was he getting so nervous? This was stupid. Sure, he's never kissed a man before but it was just a kiss. He could close his eyes and pretend it was anyone. And besides, it would be over before he knew it and the real Cas would never even know, no one will even know.

            "Well?" Demon Dean asked, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He had somehow made his way over to where they were without him realizing it.

            "Patience, pervert," he replied and leaned forward. Feeling his weight next to him, Cas shifted, moaning in his sleep. "Here goes nothing," he said and placed a hand on Cas's cheek. Gently, he laid a soft kiss on his lips. They were chapped and his face was scratchy but it felt good, it felt almost like touching the rolling surface of a lake at night, sweet and mysterious and promising in its depth if you were only willing to let yourself sink. And he had too. He knew that the demon wanted more.

            Closing his eyes, he opened Cas's mouth with his own and eased his tongue in where he found Cas wet and warm and open and willing. And he kissed him. Pushing his lips against him, lacing his tongue with his. He must have woken him for Cas kissed him back. He lifted a hand and ran his long fingers through Dean's hair and gently bit Dean's lip, and when he released it, whispered his name as if asking for more. "Dean..."

            His heart raced. His stomach fluttered. His head felt like a balloon of air and the tips of his fingers radiated with ghostlike electricity. _It felt so good_.

            And then he made the mistake of opening his eyes and seeing Cas's staring right back at him, wide and blue like the moon. And like a man at the edge of death, his life flashed before him but it wasn't just any memories, they were all of his own Cas, of his awkward smile and his ferocity and them sharing a laugh in the car.

            _Do you love him?_

            "Dean?" He tilted his head in confusion the way puppy might. He knew it wasn't his Dean perhaps by the look of fear on his face.

            "Don't worry babe, I asked him to kiss you," Demon Dean said from his place against the wall. "I wanted to prove a point." Dean looked at himself standing there, his face filled with emotion he couldn't quite repress. "I guess I was right."


	3. Nobody's Fault but Mine

Castiel was no fool and as crazy as it was-mad even with Dean safe with his demon doppelganger, he knew that this was the optimal time to search the hotel. As much as this world's Dean had said that their goals were aligned, Castiel's instincts begged him to feel otherwise.

            With his angel blade in hand, he stepped out into the hall. Suspiciously, it was empty now. Where has the demon's legion gone? He looked down each long hall. Nothing but maroon carpet and the gold wallpaper and the doors of all the rooms spaced evenly: 231, 233, 235...

            Where was he to go? Castiel opened his mind, seeking something, anything, a hunch, a feeling. A small voice whispered in his head. "Help. Someone please help" it said. Of course, the Miltons. Perhaps, they were kept here. It was after all, his human self's request to let them go, so he must know of their presence intimately.

            "What are you doing out of your room?" It was the platinum blonde from earlier, returning from her trip from delivering Dean.

            _The voices, they were coming from below_.

            "You're in big trouble. Maybe the master won't be so mad if we hurt the other Cas...," she wondered, her eyes traveling up and down him as if he were a piece of fresh meat. But Castiel didn't have time for this. He marched past her, placing a hand on her head and sending a blast of heaven through her body, her eyes lighting up like two windows with a supernova for a brain. He didn't even look at her as he made his way without a moment's thought to the nearest stairwell.

            It didn't take him long. He smote a dozen demons, fortunate that he had yet to encounter one of the Knights. The basement was all corrugated metal and pipes, water tanks and generators. Castiel stepped over the bodies of two freshly slain demons, immediately eyeing the door at the other side of the room.

            The prayer was coming from there. He could hear it. He could hear the desperation. He could hear the fear and the need ringing in his head like a thousand tiny bells.

            With his hand, he blasted down the door. It flew back, ripped from its hinges in a loud thundering boom. Entering, he saw them: Anna's father and mother tied up to a ceiling pipe and Anna herself, strapped to table with a piece of leather in her mouth and chains crisscrossing her body.

            Her parents were unconscious but she was awake and she stared at him with wet and frantic eyes. He knew immediately that it was her prayer that he had been hearing.

            "Oh, Anna," he said rushing over to her and undoing the gag.

            "Cas?" She asked in confusion. "How did you knock down the door? Where's Dean? Please tell me he isn't coming."

            "I'm not who you think I am. Close your eyes," he said, taking a step back and lifting his hand and within seconds the chains that had pinned her down shattered. She let out a panicked scream. "Shhhh..." he placed a hand over her mouth. "My name is Castiel but I'm not the Castiel you know. I'm an angel."

            "Yes, you are," a woman's voice sang. "And my, my, I haven't seen one of you in a long time. Can't say I'm nostalgic." A tall, beautiful woman with long, flowing brown hair and full lips stood in the busted doorway. It was a vessel but Castiel immediately recognized her.

            "Abaddon."

            "In the flesh. But something tells me you aren't the master's pet. Unless of course, you managed to somehow get your groove back? But that's not quite it, is it? I have to confess. I'm stumped," she smiled widely. She would have been lovely if she weren’t so dreadfully evil.

            Abaddon wasn't alone. Soon the room was flooded with more demons, several of which were Knights.

            Castiel was out of moves.

            "Now, the next question is, do we take matters into our own hands and strap this little bird down and pluck out his magical feathers or..." she sauntered over to him, examining him as if he were the most curious creature. "We wait for the master to do it."

            "Master?"

            "What? You forgot his name? Unless, you really aren't his pet, then? Well, I guess that makes things easier."

            But alas, she was to be disappointed. The Master as they called him entered with his human doppelganger close behind. "Abaddon," he said like a man telling his dog to back off. The scene evidently freaked out the real Dean. His eyes quickly met Castiel's.

            Naturally, he was angry with Cas for acting without his approval but Cas wasn't just going to sit there and be played by them.

            "You're right, that isn't my Cas. That's Cas from well, an alternate universe," he announced. "I know, Abaddon, you weren't at the meeting earlier. But you know what they say, shit just gets crazier," as if it was all so terribly dull. Abaddon took a step back and let Dean approach the angel who still held Anna, wounded and fading in his arms.

            "Dean," Castiel stared the demon down.

            "Cas," he replied.

            "What are you doing?"

            "This is exactly why I only wanted to talk to you, Dean," the demon said. "What we're doing here hits Cas too close to home and we can't screw this one up. It's too important." He never shifted his eyes from Castiel's. To the angel, they were dark and mysterious and cold and yet, he knew that wasn't all of it. This may a different universe but this Dean-maybe not his own Dean, loved him.

            "Alright!" Human Dean shouted. "Let's all just calm down. Cas! For one, what the hell?!" Of course, characteristic of Dean, he soon acted in a completely paradoxical and dramatic way than what he had just requested from others. Castiel didn't bother to respond.

            "He's too close," the demon repeated. But in truth, Castiel had no idea what any of this was about. He only knew that there wasn't something not right and that whatever Demon Dean was up to, it was wrong. He could just feel it.

            "Yeah, you keep saying that but I have no idea what you mean. Now, you're gonna have to start talking, Dean. Angel Cas is already involved, so tough," the real Dean said.

            "He's torturing us," Anna coughed. Soon her body was folding over in pain. "He's..."

            "Hold on," Cas said as he lifted his fingers to her brow. A ball of golden white light hovered over her forehead and she let in a sharp breath as her wounds were healed.

            "Thank you," She smiled up at him. "Thank you, Castiel."

            "Torturing?" Dean shouted. "What do you mean torturing?"

            "Honestly, are you surprised?" Demon Dean, flashing black eyes turned around and looked at himself. "I'm not exactly in the church choir. Abaddon, tie up Anna." The Knight swiftly obeyed the order and wrenched Anna from Castiel's grasp. By nature, Abaddon was stronger than just an average angel like him. He couldn't resist.

            Anna screamed as she was tied up next to her parents. The Knight responded with a back of her hand and dirty rag in the mouth. "Please be quiet. We don't exactly need your tongue, princess," Abaddon purred.

            Demon Dean made his way to the table Anna had been tied to. A medical cart with a box sat next to it. Castiel had figured that inside were torture devices but he wasn't quite prepared for what he pulled out. In Demon Dean's hand was a large, metal syringe with a bow shaped plunger. Of course, Castiel recognized it. He had used a needle just like it on Sam's neck in search for what little of Gadreel's grace remained inside of him.

            "Something tells me, you know what this is, babe?" he said to him.

            "Ok, what the hell is that?!" the human Dean, his dean was evidently frustrated.

            "Tell him."

            "It's a device to extract particles of grace," Castiel explained. "The Men of Letters devised it."

            "Does it work?" his Dean asked.

            "It extracts grace, yes but why do you want it, Dean?" he demanded although, in his heart he knew why.

            "Now, that requires a little back story."

            Human Dean didn't wait. "I'm all ears!"

            "After Lucifer gave me the Mark, God was furious with him and sent the angel Michael to kick his sorry ass and toss him into hell but the thing was, Michael couldn't get the job done. Truth is, Michael didn't have a chance between both me and Lucifer and so we killed him. And we killed every angel God sent us until the old man just up and left. Now, of course Lucifer wasn't happy with that and he went crazy. Cut down every angel until he grew bored of the slaughter. And so we stormed heaven."

            "Why would you help him? Why would you help him when he made you kill Sam?" Dean couldn't believe what he was hearing. This world was really twisted on its head.

            "Well, Lucifer promised me that if I helped him, he'd bring my brother back."

            "But he didn't," Cas said.

            "No. He didn't. Lucifer stormed heaven and forced every angel that remained to rip their grace out. I was there for a couple of them. I can't say it was fun to watch. It looked like a man cutting his own heart out with a spoon. But the angels didn't have a choice. Some died. Some vowed revenge but no one won. And without any angels, Lucifer locked the doors to heaven. And that's why you can't get in, Cas. And without any angels, radio's silent."

            "And now, why do you want the former angels?" Dean asked.

            "Simple. The Book of the Damned says there's a spell that can turn any blade into a weapon that can kill Lucifer. All you need is one tiny ingredient."

            "You need grace?" Cas said, his head humming.

            "Yup. The grace of 77 angels. And this little device allows me to extract the remaining bit of grace from the former angels and find out where the payload is."

            "And if it kills them?" Cas pressed.

            "It always does but look, I don't care."

            "You can't do this..." Human Dean said.

            "Oh, you see. I can and I will and I know you agree with me, Dean. Because if I can do this, I can decimate Lucifer and Hades and get Sam back. And you and I both know, black eyes or no, that's always numero uno no matter what the cost."

            "Sam wouldn't want this."

            "Doesn't matter. He can be mad at me. I don't care. As long as he's alive. And hey, he doesn't even have to know."

            Castiel's head was swimming, throbbing. He felt like a man walking through a thousand corpses. Like he was floating through nuclear fall out with his insides boiling with nausea. All the angels dead. All his brothers and sisters. Heaven gone. Heaven, a ghost town. Castiel felt even more lonely here than he felt back in his own world where he was just an angel a part but at least existing somewhere in between. Here, he was a like a small, feeble candle in an endless dark abyss.

            A surge of anger jolted through him. He had to do something. "Close your eyes!" he shouted through gritted teeth. Human Dean instinctively covered his head in his arms. Demon Dean however, turned and faced him. Cas' s eyes glowed bright neon blue and his wings, large and black like the wings of a crow flashed on the wall. He lifted his hand and sent out a surge of destructive energy, fueled by his frustration, his heartbreak, and his anger.       

            The room was washed with a blinding white light and the rings of a dozen of demons' heads exploding. When the flare finally dimmed, only the humans, the Knights, and Demon Dean stood there. The rest were slumped over with bleeding gaping holes for eyes.

            The real Dean looked up and stared at him, shaken by what was obviously Castiel's fury. Demon Dean however, gazed at him with wide eyes filled with love and wonder. "Look at you," he said. "And here I thought, my little nerdy Cas couldn't get anymore beautiful."

            "So you're going to extract the grace from Anna then?" Human Dean pressed. "And how many is that?"

            "She's number 76," the demon said, making his way to the girl as she desperately tried to struggle from the chains that bound her to the pipe over her head.

            "So what? That makes Cas number 77?" Dean asked.

            "Unfortunately. I looked everywhere and the more I search, the more I find that his grace is the last." Without any warning, he jammed the syringe into Anna's neck.

            "No!" Castiel shouted but it was useless. Whether by Demon Dean's power or the power of one of his Knights, he was pushed with a formidable force against the wall that only moments ago bore the shadows of his wings.

            Human Dean could do nothing but watch on, powerless as Anna writhed, her screams muffled by the filthy rag Abaddon had shoved in her mouth. "Love, my ass," he said. "You're really going to do this to Cas? You're gonna shove a damn needle into his throat and kill him? All to make a sword that may or may not kill Lucifer, that may or may not get Sam back?"

            The grace glowed beautifully bright like luminescent blood in the barrel of the syringe. "That was the plan. I told myself that it was only for a little while." Anna stopped fighting, stopped squirming. She lay there limp, presumably dead. Demon Dean acted as if he were merely picking a flower-or a weed. "I told myself that I was extorting him, taking his money and his hotel. Told myself that fucking him was nothing but a form of sadism. 'Make him love you, Dean' I said to myself. It'll make it funnier when you jam the needle into his pretty little neck and break his little heart." He went to the box that held the syringe and gently put it back, closing it, and handing it to Abaddon. He told the knights to leave. Without a word of protest, they followed his orders.

            "Except, I got snagged," he turned his attention now to the angel, his back against the wall, pinned there now more out of defeat than by the power of a demon. "I should slice your throat and take your grace," he said to him, placing a gentle hand on the angel's face. "I could do it so easily and all of this will be over but for some reason, I can't." The look in his eyes was soft and tender and his words sincere and true.

            Castiel stared back at him, realizing perhaps for the first time that although he was a demon, he was still Dean. And Castiel could only dream about this, about being caressed so sweetly. He could only dream about Dean loving him like this. How long he had secretly ached for it, he had no idea. Perhaps it was as Hester said. Maybe it all began with a single touch in Hell.

            This world was like a fantasy coiled around a nightmare. Deep in Castiel's heart, he longed to be kissed but he would never say it.

            "I let you kiss mine," the demon said to himself. "It's only fair I get to kiss yours." His gaze jumped from Castiel's lips back and forth to his eyes. The angel had seen Dean look at him like that before but he didn't know what it meant.

            Human Dean had no response for him. He merely watched, a spectator in this horror show where his id ruled as king.

            He pressed his forehead against the angel's and cupped his face with both hands, all the while, looking straight into his eyes. Castiel couldn't breathe, feeling like he was being hypnotized. "The human in me is weak and scared," Dean said. "But I think you know that, Cas. But what I don't think you know is that, the human in you is weak and scared, too." He kissed his lips so softly and so sweetly; he could have been a saint. And then again he kissed him, this time deeper. He moaned when he tasted Castiel's saliva.

            "Dean..." was all the angel could say for he was merely liquid and exploding hearts and fluttering. If only it were real. But Cas knew better. His Dean, the actual Dean watched on. He controlled himself and didn't kiss him back.

            "Cas?" the demon said with such vulnerability he could have been a scared child. "Babe," smiles and charm. "Angel Cas," he pecked him on his nose. "I want you to wrap me in your wings."

            _It isn't real. It isn't real._ But it felt so good to hear Dean talk like this. To say things like this. _It isn't real. It isn't real._ Cas shut his eyes tightly, trying to stifle the desire that threatened to brim up, summoned by the demon's sweet words. He wanted to, too. He wanted to kiss him while Dean laughed. He wanted to look at his olive green eyes while the smile lines fanned around them. He wanted to hold him and him in wrap the wings he kept hidden.

            But it isn't real.

            None of this is real and if Dean sees you acting like this with this evil imitation, he may never speak to you again. If he sees your desire, he may never look at you again. And if he senses how much you truly want it, he will cut you out of his life for good.

            _He mustn't know you love him._

            Cas would rather have what little he had than nothing at all.

            It felt like pulling out his own teeth, but Castiel managed to push the demon away. "Stop, I don't want you," he lied. "I'll never want you, Dean," he said with such maliciousness he even surprised himself.

            The room was quiet, horribly quiet. The angel and the demon stared back at one another while Dean, human watched them with baited expectation. "Ok, well, look, we have bigger problems then whatever the hell this is," he was visibly shaken.

            "Are you two going to help me rescue Sam or not?" the Demon asked, speaking as if there was a bitter taste on the tip of his tongue.

            "For one, you're going to let Cas fix Anna's parents and you're going let them go before we can even talk," Dean demanded.

            "Sure. Fine. I don't care." With a small gesture of his hand, the ropes that held them up snapped and they fell to the floor.

            "Cas," Dean asked.

            "Of course," the angel said, crossing the room and promptly healing them.

            "First off, I'm sorry angel Cas ain't buying what you're selling. Tough but we need to seriously talk about that Cas upstairs."

            "Where do you get off on telling me what I can and cannot do, you weak, pathetic, guilt-ridden little do-gooder," his Demon self replied. "Frankly, I hated being you. As far as I am concerned, Lucifer partly did me a solid giving me this mark. That way I don't have to care about weeping little shits like the Miltons."

            "But you still care about Sam and you still care about Cas. Hell, I see the way you look at him. You act tough and boss him around but I know that if he asked you to jump, you'd ask how high."

            Demon Dean rolled his eyes. "Right. And you're point?"

            "I'm not going to let you kill him. That's my point. Hell, he ain't even my Cas but I'm not going to let you do it."

            "I'm not going to kill him!" he shouted. "I haven't given up searching for his grace, okay? I know it's near here. I know it. With the location spell using the grace, I can find the specific place but without it, I just get the general area. So, you can calm the hell down. I'm not going to hurt Cas. I rather die," he looked at himself, eye to eye. "And you and I both know that I mean that."

            "You're not going to tell him he's an angel are you?" Castiel asked. "You're just going to use his grace."

            "What babe don't know won't hurt him," he replied simply.

            "That's seems fair," Human Dean retorted.

            Castiel sighed. "Well Dean, it isn't ideal but I have to say I agree with your demonic doppelganger. It's the best situation we can hope for considering the circumstances."

            "What? Take his grace without his permission?" Dean acted as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

            "In all honesty, I can't exactly speak for the Castiel upstairs but if my grace was required to save Sam Winchester, I would sacrifice it."

            "But that Cas doesn't even know Sam."

            "Sam and I weren't exactly best friends when I rescued him from Lucifer's cage," Castiel glared at Dean, frustrated with the human's reluctance to see the point. "I did it because Sam was a good man and he didn't deserve to be in Hell and I did it for you. Because you were my friend." The demon smirked evilly at Castiel as he spoke but he ignored it and continued: "He doesn't even remember being an angel. Sacrificing something he didn't even know he had for the man he loves hardly counts as a contest, Dean."

            "Well, if you honestly believe that then lets ask him."

            "Dean, you really want to disrupt a man's whole concept of who he is just so he can say yes when we already know that will be his answer? Don't you think that's cruel?"

            "What I think is cruel is lying and taking something that isn't ours to take. What I think is cruel is letting the poor guy believe that this demon piece of crap out here actually loves him when all he wants to do is use him. That's what I think is cruel. The right thing, Cas is treat him with some goddamn respect and ask his permission for what is only his to give. I can't believe I actually have to tell you this. You would think you, as an angel, would know that."

            "First off, you sappy little shit," his Demon self cut in. "I do love him. That's my problem. This would all be said and done if I didn't. But with that, I think you're right. I'll ask him. Cas is a big boy. I think he can handle it."

            "Fine," the angel agreed. "Now that we're all on the same page, I need to return the Miltons to their home with the body of their deceased daughter that you so unjustly-"

            "Demon, Cas! Really? Honestly" he interjected. "Check the man's pockets for the address. We'll be upstairs with the cuddlier Cas. And don't spend too much time helping them grieve," he added, rolling his eyes. "We have work to do."

***

"Yes. Of course," Cas agreed. He was sitting on the edge of his bed with only a sheet around his waist. Demon Dean was too impatient to wait for him to dress. He was convinced that with Angel Cas the grace could easily be found. Dean agreed with him that that was probably true. Angels did have weird spidey senses.

            "Are you sure?" Dean asked him again. He was leaning against the wall, opposite of Cas. His demon self was sitting nearby on the bed.

            He looked up at him, his eyes bright in the sunlight that now poured into the room. Dawn had come upon them swiftly while Cas slept. With hair tussled and his nakedness bare, Dean had to fight the strange feelings that welled up inside of him. He knew it was desire but they had no time for that, not right now. And after what the angel said to his demon self last night, not ever.

            Dean was human, he knew that but Cas deep down was an angel. Love to them was something broad, something like a profound idea, the kind that saints had. The capital L kinda love. Not the personal kind. Not the kind that made you stupid. Not the kind that made you unable to breathe, or eat, or sleep. No, angels couldn't feel anything like that.

            This guy here, this Cas though. He was born human. He ripped his grace out and fell to Earth. He had been married, had a daughter. Maybe he knew how to love. But then again, maybe it was just a kiss and Dean was stupid. Wouldn't be the first time.

            "Of course, I'm sure. If it can kill Lucifer and bring Sam back then, yes."

            "But it's your grace. With it, you're an angel. You're..." What, Dean?

            "I don't remember being an angel. And besides, if I were one, the only other angel is Lucifer. It seems like a lonely existence. At least, I can do this for you, Dean," he turned to his lover sitting beside him. "As far as I'm concerned, it isn't much."

            Yeah, well because you don't know what you're missing, Dean wanted to say but what was the point?

            "Well?" the angel said, suddenly appearing in the room. Human Cas was shaken by his sudden appearance; he instinctively retreated back against the headboard. The sheet feebly covered his more private parts.

            "Don't worry. He can just pop up where he wants," Human Dean explained.

            "Well, not entirely. If a place is warded-"

            "Yeah, yeah," he cut him off. "He's got other abilities. He can heal and he doesn't age or get sick and he's super strong, like Herculean strong and he can solve puzzles really fast, like Jimmy Johns fast," he expounded to Human Cas. "You sure you don't want to pokemon up, buddy?"

            "Well, it's not all great," the angel added.

            "Yeah," Dean made his way to the whiskey bottle him and his evil twin had been drinking from the night before. "He can't exactly," he gestured to the pair on the bed. "You know."

            "What?" human Cas asked, unsure of what he meant.

            "He can't like have something like that, you know." How was he supposed to explain it? He poured the whiskey and took a huge gulp.

            "You mean angels can't love," Human Cas attempted to clarify.

            Dean nodded in agreement. "You don't genuinely believe that, Dean?" the angel asked him, actually shocked.

            "Man, the longer I'm with you, the more I realize how pathetic human me was," Demon Dean stood up. "Look, we need to slow down on this soap opera as sadly entertaining it is. Cas agreed to let us use his grace. Now, I'm hoping you can sense it," he asked the angel.

            "I can find it if you tell me the general area. I should be able to sense it."

            "Well, there's a forest not far from here. The spell I used said it was in or around there. My demons and I have combed through there several times and found nothing."

            "Back home, Anna in our world ripped out her grace and when she fell, it formed a big beautiful tree," Dean mused. "So, it's probably in the most beautiful tree there."

            "All the freaking trees look alike..."

            "Cas," he turned to the man still siting in bed, naked. "Are you familiar with this forest?" He nodded in agreement. Then something suddenly occurred to Dean. "That painting. In the study with that big ass tree and that light in it, where did that painting come from?"

            "I painted it, Dean."

            "Babe's quite the artist," the demon added. "So you think that's the juiced up tree?"

            "If I had to take a guess, yeah. Where is that tree, Cas?"

            Cas shook his head. "Well, that's the thing," he said with sigh. "Probably why you can't find it. My father chopped that tree down and used the wood to build the fireplace in the study."

            "That creepy ass snake one?"

            "That's the one."

            "Doesn't matter," the angel chimed in. "Even if the bark was removed, the life source of a tree and most plant matter is the roots. It's the heart, the circulatory system of the organism."

            "So, what we're actually looking for is a stump," the demon smiled, impressed. "Nice work, team. You're not as dumb as I thought," he said oddly to his human self.

***

            Crowley huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf about to blow the bunker down. Luckily for Sam, it was made of bricks. "I swear! You Winchesters just have an inherent longing for death and endless, unending, ceaseless-"

            "I'm pretty sure all those words mean the same thing," Sam interrupted, shoving all the things he would need into his duffel bag, the bronze bowl and all the myriad, grotesque elements for a summoning spell.

            "Torture!" He finished. "Torture," he said once more, this time with less guffaw. "You really want to draw Lucifer out and do what? Hashtag Waste his time? As well as what little we have left?"

            "Look, Crowley. When Dean and Cas come back, Lucifer is going to be there waiting for them. The least I can do is distract him so he doesn't kill them the minute he sees them. He knows they're up to something. He's not an idiot."

            "And I didn't think you were one either but I guess I was wrong!"

            Crowley ought to know better. He wasn't going to talk Sam out it. Rowena however, sat there, quietly, her hands folded in her lap, hoping that he was just going to forget that she was there. Fat chance at that. "Hey!" he said to her. "Are you coming?"

            "Why would I do that, Samuel? I hate to say it but Fergus is right. What you're planning on doing is suicide."

            "If Dean and Cas die before they tell us the spell, then he's just going to hunt us all down and kill us anyway. So, grow a pair of ovaries and come with me. I'm going to need you to paint the warding."

            "Once the warding fades, Samuel we're chopped liver. You know that, right?" She protested.

            "Not if we string him along."

            "String him along? Something tells me the Prince of Darkness strings people up, he doesn't get strung along." She was truly aghast at this boy's arrogance.

            "Something tells me, Rowena, that you're not the type of woman who lets a man beat her down and get away with it?"

            "Okay, Winchester. You're right about that but to win the war, you gotta know which battles you can win and which ones you can't. And if we do this, it won't be a battle at all. It will be a massacre."

            "Don't you get it? The big boss fight won't go down without my brother and Cas. As of right now, they're sitting ducks so we gotta put ourselves in the position to win."

            "So a game of cat and mouse, hm? And how are we to do that exactly?"

            "I have a plan, okay? And unfortunately, I need both of you. The Cold War is over, Boris and Natasha. We got bigger fish and I'm going to need you both to stop pissing yourselves and get on board, got it?"

            Rowena let out a loud, dramatic sigh. "Fine," she said and stood up. "Just so you know, I don't like this but if we're going to go through with it, you are not going in naked. Especially if you're my back up."

            "What?" Sam had no idea what she was talking about.

            Guiding him to one of the sitting chairs, she gently forced him to sit. "Just cozy up, giant. This will be over soon."

***

            "You know what you're doing?" Cas asked him. They were in the study, beneath the painting of the beautiful tree across from the snakehead fireplace. The desk was cleared and all elements for the spell that had been laid out in the Book of the Damned were gathered. It wasn't just grace as his demon self had suggested. There were a couple other ingredients more easily to come by: angel feathers, holy water, and of course, human blood. Since neither the angel or the demon could offer that up, they went to the forest to retrieve the final grace, Cas's grace and left the humans behind to start.

            Several wooden boxes sat unassumingly next to the bronze bowl where inside rested the water and the feathers. Within those boxes was the grace of 76 fallen angels, Anna's being the 76th and easily located by Demon Dean's evil henchmen.

            "Yeah, I've done quite a bit of spells in my time," Dean answered. Each grace was to be poured over the blade, one by one with a dose of blood. To make it easier, Dean had brought a syringe and planned to draw from his vein periodically. "Although I have to say this one will probably take the longest."

            The sword that was to be chosen was leaning against the desk. His demon self had picked it. It was a large and heavy relic from what could have been the middle ages. The more material he could juice up the better he said when Dean suggested that a smaller blade would be easier to transport.  

            "You're different," Cas said to him suddenly.

            "Huh?" Dean glanced up at him. Cas was standing there in a white, knitted sweater and grey slacks. He was like a Ralph Lauren ad which of course, just made him look more gay but Dean had to admit, he also looked really good.

            "You're different from the Dean I know."

            "Yeah, well, I'm not a demon so..."

            Curious, Cas opened one of the boxes and stared at the many, glowing vials of grace inside. Dean could only guess what he was thinking. Perhaps, he was wondering what it was like to be an angel and wondering what his life was like before he fell to earth. Or maybe, he was just admiring their beauty as they swam in those tiny glass bottles.

            "I suppose that's it. That of course is the simple answer to it," he said picking a vial up and inspecting it. "You're Dean but you're not." He directed his gaze to Dean unexpectedly, the light of the grace glowing startlingly in his blue eyes.

            "I was a demon for a little while. It's complicated and it will take too long to explain it but I remember what it was like and I gotta say, even though I was _that_ and I did things that human me wouldn't do, I still felt like it was me, you know." He arbitrarily shifted the bowl on the table as if it he had to. He just didn't want to look at Cas when he talked. "I'm not sure if that helps or anything..."   

            "It can be cured?" Cas put the vial back in the box.

            "Yeah but that mark on his arm will turn him back to a demon if he's killed and besides, that mark makes you... I don't know. Evil?"

            "You still feel guilty, don't you?" Cas observed him, his eyes innocent and sympathetic. Dean should be used to it, being the subject of Cas's alien fascination but for some reason, right now, it just made him feel raw.

            "Kinda one of my personality traits but I guess you wouldn't know that since the only Dean you've ever known doesn't feel guilt."

            "Well, it may surprise you but I think he does. He tries to pretend that he's cold like the other demons but for some reason, whatever happened to them couldn't quite change him completely." Cas moved over to the other side of the desk, the one Dean was on and casually leaned against it. Dean knew it was only natural for him, that being this physical close was so common that he hardly thought about it. But it made Dean nervous. He shifted on his heels and looked away.

            "Yeah," Dean agreed. "And I bet you help with that," he gulped, glancing at him abashed and somewhat shy. Why did he have to go there? Even when it made him feel so uncomfortable. Perhaps, it was like knocking over a glass of water that was dawdling on the edge. The pure, morbid curiosity led him to lend it at small push just to see what it would look like in a mass of broken, wet glass.

            Cas narrowed his eyes at him. "I take it that you and your Cas don't have the same kind of relationship."

            "We're not. You know? We're um...You know...uh..." his mind was clogging up on him. "Straight shooters" was the best he could come up with at the moment.

            "I don't understand the correlation between your aim and your relationship with the other Castiel."

            Dean smiled. He was still Cas after all. "Yeah, you wouldn't. I mean I'm not gay. Cas, I don't know. He's kinda into the whole Cat Stevens, flower crown thing so," he shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows?"

            "I still don't understand what you're saying."

            "It just a bunch of references so, no big deal. I mean, you would think being that you're so close to the other Dean-"

            "No, I figured you were using a bunch of distant and likely outdated cultural allusions to make your point. What I mean is, I'm fairly certain that you're sexually attracted to men."

            How Dean managed to bang his knee on the table, he wasn't quite sure but it was that special spot, where it felt particularly painful. He tried to stifle the grimace and play it off as if was nothing. "No. That kiss thing. My evil twin wanted me to do that because he's evil and that's what evil twins do."

            "They make you kiss their boyfriends?"

            "Yeah, I bet other evil twins do that. Who's to say they don't? Hm? How many other evil twins have you met?"

            "Just the one," Castiel answered with a small smile on his face. _Why was he smiling?_

            "See?"

            "Dean is sweet but you're even sweeter, good twin," he played along. "And you're bashful and you care. You're not only extremely sexy like him but you're also...." he tilted his head, as he searched the word. Dean felt his cheeks burning red and his mouth going dry. "Cute."

            "See, my Cas, he doesn't talk like that. He doesn't..." Maybe it'll be better if you just shut up, Dean? You sound like a girl that just got asked out to the prom by the quarterback.

            "Dean," Cas said, trying to get his attention. Dean begrudgingly obliged, looking at him with an unsteady gaze, periodically glancing back to the bowl as if it were about to grow feet and threaten to run away. "This may be a different universe in a different time and in different space, but we're still the same. I know it sounds crazy but I know just by looking at you. And how could I not?" he tilted his head as he spoke, smiling cheekily. "You're the man I love after all?"

            Dean shut his eyes tightly and gathered his strength. "Well, um...I'm not the love type," he managed to say.

            "Dean," Cas reached over and lifted his face to his. Stoking his temple gently, he placed a small kiss on Dean's cheek. "I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable," he said to him. "But even if I'm not the one, Dean. You should know that you don't have to be afraid."

            "Yeah well, all my relationships go to crap so," he managed to free himself for Cas' gentle touch.

            "Do you think it's your fault?"

            "Whose fault would it be but mine? I don't know. I just screw things up and people for some reason, don't like to stick around. Can't blame them." Dean reached for the sword and placed it on top of the bowl. He had to do something.

            "That can't be true, Dean."

            "Yeah, and how would you know?"

            "Well for one, Dean, you're easy to love." Dean looked up at him with a look that was both exhausted and challenging but what he found was just Cas smiling sweetly at him, knowing that was going to ruffle Dean's feathers.

***

            The forest was thick and wild. And the night mercilessly black and beneath the canopy of branches and leaves, the sky with its blue moon could not be seen. If he were merely a man, Castiel would not be able to see a thing. It was him, a Knight of Hell whose name he was not given, and Dean's demon doppelganger.

            They slipped through the forest in silence. Unlike human Dean, Demon Dean didn't bother to make conversation. Castiel figured that perhaps since they were so close in forging the weapon that could free his brother, he was too wrought with anxiety to make small talk.

            Human Castiel had said that the tree was somewhere dead center although he had not been out here since he was a child and his recollection was a bit fuzzy. But it made no matter, Cas could sense the grace the moment he entered and as they advanced deeper into the wood, its power called out to him.

            The demons trusted his instincts and followed.

            "I do have a question for you," Castiel said, breaking the silence.

            "Shoot."

            "You mention Hades when you talk about freeing Sam. What do you mean?"

            "Well, since Heaven is boarded up, Lucifer struck a deal with some has-been Greek god and now all the souls that aren't earmarked for hell go there. From what I've been told from other gods, Sam's there."

            "I see. I'm sorry, Dean."

            The demon watched him through the heavy dark. His thoughts mysterious. "I have a question for you."

            "Shoot."

            "Do you hate me?"

            "Well Dean, you're a demon and I'm an angel. We're natural adversaries. But, to be completely honest with you, no I don't hate you. You're still Dean even if you are a demon and you're still my best friend."

            "Nice to know..."

            "Why? Why do you care?" Castiel turned and looked at him. "It makes no difference between you and your Castiel." The Knight of Hell kept silent and trailed behind them. He noticed that when their master was around, they didn't speak much.

            "I don't know. I guess you rejecting me last night in the basement kinda hurt my feelings," he answered, grinning.

            "I somehow doubt that." The grace called out to Castiel. They were close. The night was chilly but the sensation of the grace, the aura of it was like lukewarm water in his brain. To the west. "This way," Cas stated, changing direction.

            "Are we close?"

            "Very."

            He saw it then. Or rather felt it. In a clearing, there was a graveyard of tree stumps. Some wide enough to seat four people and in the center was the largest. To anyone else, it would have been nothing special, a sad relic of something beautiful and now broken, totally forgettable if not for a momentary sadness. It was apt symbol Cas thought to himself for an angel without his grace but if he were being truthful, it was really an apt symbol for Castiel himself.

            Without a word, he marched up to the stump and laid a hand on it as he would to check if a man were still alive. The grace swirled inside, through the roots of the dead tree, swimming back and forth. In his mind, he saw it glowing and shimmering.

            It called out to him for it was his grace after all, Castiel's grace and it longed to be home. It hurt more than he thought to pull it up, drawing it forth with the palm of his hand. The roots flashed beneath the ground, the stump itself glowed bright and brighter as the grace gathered. And soon, it was condensed into a swirling ball of blue, white light, lighting up the forest like a small sun.

            A force emanated off of it, pulsing out a gentle gust of wind. Castiel could feel Dean's eyes on his face, watching him and he could feel the grace calling out to him, longing to return to him. "The vial," he said.

            Dean quickly drew it from the pocket of his jeans and placed it beneath the grace. Castiel released his hold, allowing the grace to flow into the little glass bottle like water from a tap.

            Soon, it was trapped, a cap sealing it shut.

            "How are you feeling?" Dean asked.

            "I feel okay. Strange, but okay."

            Dean looked down at the vial, the light of which illuminated the features of his face against the dark forest. "Castiel's grace," he announced. "Feels different. Feels special," the edge of his lips perked up in a small smile as he looked back at Cas.

            If he thought about it, he knew that it would only cause a myriad array of mixed feelings, feelings that he wouldn't be able to understand and feelings that had no use and no meaning. Castiel needed to keep the goal in focus. He couldn't falter now. "We have the grace. We should go back to the hotel," he said blankly, turning around and marching back the way they came as if he had just done the most banal thing in the universe, well this one at least.

***

            Dean and Cas were busy staring at one another when the angel materialized. Seeing them there, gazing at one another like that, Castiel was a bit taken a back, unsure of what it meant.          

            "A little warning would have been nice," Demon Dean said, standing behind him.

            Castiel ignored him. "Have you started the spell, yet?"

            Human Dean looked at him as if he had just been caught red handed. "Uh..." he was too startled to speak.

            "Not yet," the other Cas replied for him.

            "What were you doing this whole time?" the angel narrowed his eyes and strode to the table to begin, unwilling to waste even a second.

            "Probably tongue wrestling," the demon quipped.

            Dean attempted to explain himself; "you two were freaky fast."

            "He's not wrong," his doppelganger added. "Without anyone to slow us down, SuperCas here was able to find it, no problem."

            "It is technically my grace," he glanced up at his human version as he spoke. "I'm surprised you don't sense it."

            Human Cas directed his gaze to his Demon Dean. "I do," he replied, realizing that it was he who possessed it.

            "You still want to go through with it?" Human Dean gently inquired of him.

            He was met with a sweet, endearing smile and a nod, "Of course, Dean."

            The spell itself was simple, a few words of enochian, said to Castiel's great surprise with perfect pronunciation from the demon, and dousing the sword in a vial of grace and a drop of blood. It was though, long and tiring and the angel had to step in when Dean started getting frustrated and sloppy.

            Finally, it was time for the last vial of grace. Demon Dean pulled the vial from his pocket and offered it to his Cas. "Care to do the honors?" he asked.

            If it had an effect on him, Castiel could not tell. He dutifully removed the cap and let it pour over the sword while the demon uttered the incantation one last time.

            For several moments after the concluding words were said, nothing happened. It was long enough to create a panic but soon the sword itself started to pulsate like a heartbeat with white blue light, the color of angel grace itself.

            The demon reached over and grabbed the hilt, lifting it up and bringing it closer to him. How long he had been searching for this, the others could only have guessed. He held in his hands now the key to exacting his revenge and freeing his baby brother at last.

            He had no words.

            The sword felt oddly feeble in his hands. Save for the glow, it was like any other knock off he had seen before. He was surprised to find that unlike the first blade, this weapon did not fill him with a surge of power although it was strong enough to destroy his greatest enemy.

            In fact, there was actually something benevolent about it. Perhaps, it was the grace.

            "Tomorrow, we can determine our plan to invade the Underworld," the angel reported. "For now, we should rest. We'll reconvene first thing in the morning." Castiel didn't look at the sword before promptly exiting. Why should he? Unlike Demon Dean, the sword made him feel uneasy, queasy even, like looking at a lampshade made of human body parts except it was strangely beautiful and therefore, more cruel.

            Let the demon admire the fruits of his labor and the humans watch in their bewilderment.

            Castiel, the only angel in the world needed solitude.

            He needed to be left alone.

***

            Dean returned to the room as if it were theirs to share. He could have gone anywhere really but the thought didn't even occur to him.

            He could see Castiel standing on the balcony. The room without any lights except for the moon, large and blue and low in the night sky.

            "Cas?" Dean stepped out onto the landing. The air was cool but still.

            The angel was reading from a book. In fact, it was the book of poems that Dean had pulled out when he was trying to make a point.

            The angel sensing his presence, began to read aloud:

            "When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

            And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

            And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

            Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

            How many loved your moments of glad grace,

            And loved your beauty with love false or true,

            But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

            And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

            And bending down beside the glowing bars,

            Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

            And paced upon the mountains overhead

            And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

 

            Dean listened in silence, feeling as if something hung over Cas, something that he couldn't quite shake.

            "You know what is strange," the angel said, looking up from his book and out to the forest. "How there are things that are still the same; the fall of Lucifer, denim jeans, and even this," he held up the book of poems in his hand. "Yeats' poetry. But there are things that are entirely different. There is no heaven, no '67 Chevy Impala, and then there's the moon. The moon is blue."

            "Are you ok, Cas?" Dean asked softly.

            The angel shifted his gaze to meet his own. "I'm fine, Dean."

            "Hey, buddy. I know there's something up. Talk to me," he placed a hand on Cas's shoulder, trying his best to reach out to him.

            "Truly, I'm fine." The angel opened the book to the page he had been reading from. "This poetry. It's very beautiful," he said, seemingly changing the subject. Glancing up at Dean, he added, "You should read it" and offered to him.

            Dean took the book willingly but he didn't know why Cas cared so much. But he knew that no matter how many times Dean asked, the angel wasn't going to say.


	4. Elysium

The hotel was much larger than Dean had imagined. The ballroom huge and wide looked out to the thick, mysterious forest from floor-length windows and embedded in the ceiling were wondrous chandeliers made of a thousand gold lights. The carpet with curling geometric patterns, red and gold, stretched from the door all the way to the other end where there rested a raised dais made of luminescent crystal. On the top of which was placed somewhat carelessly a dining chair plucked from one of the tables.

            The ballroom itself was filled with hundreds of what could only be demons. Behind the dais, where Demon Dean sat, his elbows on his knees, twirling the sword with a bored rotation of his hands stood the Knights.

            Human Dean stood off to the side of this makeshift throne, feeling strange knowing that at the center of peculiar demonic feudalism was his doppelganger, lording over them all with his host gathered to hear what he had to say. The crowd of them buzzed like cicadas, eyeing the pulsing sword spinning in Dean's hands.

            Word must have got around rather easily because no one was surprised to see human Dean standing there. Human Cas materializing from this multitude stood next to him. "This place is weird," Dean said to him.

            "I can imagine," he answered in his sympathetic way.

            "I grew up in car, eating gas station food and Cas, when he was human like you, he worked at a gas station. Strange to see this," he gestured about him.

            "Well, to be fair, I was born rather well-off. And although I may be rich," he smiled "I can't exactly heal people and I'm no hero like your Cas. So, it's not all it seems."

            Dean watched him, sensing the familiar gentleness. "Yeah, but I bet you would be if you could. Besides, from what I hear you keep him in check."

            Cas smiled, charming lines formed around his big blue eyes. "I try," he said. "Besides with me being rather disgustingly rich and him, a ruler of demons, we aren't exactly a match made in Heaven."

            Dean laughed at that. "Yeah. Well, if it's any consolation, apparently me and my Cas are a match made in Hell, literally."

            "How so?"

            "He rescued my soul from Hell," he answered with a bit of flourish.

            "Sounds kinda romantic." The smile on his face widen somewhat suggestively. Dean realized that he was flirting with him.

            "Yeah, well, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be..." he looked down at his hands, embarrassed by the turn in the conversation.

            "Do you think there's an alternate reality somewhere where our lives are normal and not cosmic in proportion?" Human Cas mused.

            "Wouldn't that be nice?"

            "Sam would be happy and alive. We'd have a house in Massachusetts and a golden retriever. I'd teach poetry at a local college and you'd fix cars."

            "Yeah, and the biggest problem in our life is whether we name our little Korean baby Blake or Caleb?" Dean joked.

            "Alright. I admit it sounds a bit pretentious."

            "Yeah, you're only missing the white picket fence."

            "Well, of course. That goes without saying, Dean."

            "I love how in your fantasy, you assume we'd be together."

            "Sorta fits the genre doesn't it, Dean? If we weren't together, it wouldn't be a fantasy. It'd be a tragedy," he grinned.

            Dean had to laugh, feeling his neck get warm. Was he blushing? "I didn't realize how smooth you could be if you were born normal."

            "I can be rough too, if you like."

            Dean couldn't stop laughing. Or was he giggling?

            But the moment soon ended as the doors to the ballroom were thrown open. The sea of demons parted as Cas, clad in his trench coat with an angel blade in one hand dragged a familiar looking man into the hall, as he kicked and screamed. The angel threw him at the foot of the dais.

            "Well, look what the cat dragged in!" Demon Dean exclaimed, rising now from his seat. "Hermes, right?" he pointed the sword at him.

            Oh, yeah, that bastard. Dean remembered him from the grotesque auction where poor Linda Tran attempted to sell her soul in exchange for her son. Hermes wore the same pinstriped suit, still looking like a frazzled Mr. Peanut.

            "And Plutos?" Demon Dean asked the angel.

            "He was useless to us so I killed him," he answered, almost angrily.

            "Brutal. You all should be a little more like our winged friend here," he said to his demons. "Not you, Hermes. Air Jordans really only make you think you can fly, right?"

            "You honestly think you're funny, don't you!" the god guffawed. "Arrogant monster. Murdered his own brother and makes his minions clean up his mess!"

            "You better watch your tongue, you pinky in the air asshat. I'm the one with the army. I'm the one with the first blade and the mark that goes with it. I'm the one with the only angel and I'm the one that's got Excalibur right here," he lifted the sword and admired it.

            "What is that?" Hermes asked with disgust. "How did you come by that?"

            "Cashed in my credit card rewards," he stepped down from the dais and made his way over to Hermes who in his attempt to crawl away, fell on his back. "Now, I know that it's your job description to bring souls to the Underworld so you're gonna tell me where it is."

            "I would never. And not because I care even a bit about Hades but because frankly, I can't stand you monotheists."

            "You should watch what you say, you wouldn't want the wrath of God to reign down on your dead calf eating ass." The demon took a step back. "Cas," he said to the angel.

            With irritation, Castiel glared at Dean as if to say he didn't follow his orders but pulled Hermes back by the collar nonetheless and shoved his hand right into Hermes chest. The god didn't have a soul but whatever was in his body burned red and caused him to squirm in agonizing pain. Soon, he was begging the angel to stop.

            "Fine!" Hermes shouted. "I'll show you."

            "No, tell. I'm not playing that damn 'I'll show you so you don't kill me' crap. I've waited too damn long for this and I'm not about to carry your dead weight."

            "Dean, you're not only a vile homosexual but you're a fool."

            "The more you talk, the worse things will be for you," the angel interjected. "Just tell us where the Underworld is and you'll die painlessly."

            "You stupid glorified bird," Hermes spat. "The Underworld will only open for me."

            "Right!" Demon Dean rolled his eyes. "Ain't that convenient for you!"

            "Exactly. That's the point, you beast."

            "Dean," the angel said. "He's probably telling the truth. If you and your demons haven't located Hades yet, it may be because it only shows itself to Hermes."

            "And then what? Wait for him to betray us?"

            "Should I torture him some more?"

            "No, no, no, no," Hermes begged. "Listen, I won't betray you. Let me live and don't hurt me and I'll take you there. Please. Just keep the angel away, please. Please."

            "Fine," Dean agreed and stepped back on the dais. "Tonight, we gear up for war," he addressed the crowd as they watch in bated silence. "Tonight, we storm the gates of the Underworld and we end Hades and we end Lucifer. He won't be alone. He'll be surrounded by the demons loyal to him. But we're gonna bust through those gates and show those sorry excuses what real, deliciously vicious evil looks like. This is a coup. And tonight, we'll crown a new Prince." He flashed them his devilishly handsome grin as he basked in their applause, returning to his seat to lord over them all.

***

Castiel sat in the study and watched the fire. The hum of the demon horde in the ballroom could be heard outside the walls. He didn't belong there. Leaving before his Dean could approach him, he had no idea where he was. Probably in their room.

            The door opened and Demon Dean stepped in. "I've been looking for you," he said. He carried in his hand a long case with a handle. It could have easily been mistaken for a guitar case if it weren't for its thin rectangular shape.

            "I'm not one of your followers, Dean. If you have anymore orders perhaps you should speak to one the Knights," he said to him dismissively.

            "Our human counterparts seem to get along. I don't see why we can't. Hey, I'm not asking you to go to bed with me but why can't we be friends?" the demon attempted to bargain. "Besides, I've come bearing gifts."

            "I want nothing from you."

            "Hey, don't reject it until you see it. Besides, I think it might come in handy."

            The angel looked up at him and after several moments replied with a reluctant, "let me see it."

            Dean walked over to the desk and placed it there. "Take a peak." He popped it open to reveal what was inside. Securely snug in a bed of red velvet lay a long old staff.

            "Where did you get this?"

            "Why? Are you sincerely surprised?"

            "This is the staff of Moses."

            "It's a family heirloom," he answered simply.

            "Of course, you replace Cain in the narrative that I am familiar with," Castiel said matter of factly. "And why will you give this to me?"

            "I think we'll need it tonight. Besides, I was hoping for a little thank you kiss." The angel narrowed his eyes at him. "Or a hug. I'm not demanding."

            "Is that really all you want?" Castiel asked of him, suspicious of his intentions.

            "Well, you could always push me up against the wall with all that heavenly might of yours."

            "That doesn't sound very pleasant for you, Dean."

            "You need a dirtier imagination," the demon grinned.

            Castiel immediately blushed as a whole host of images flooded his brain unwillingly. "I'll use the staff but I'm not going to violently sodomize you for it," he retorted simply.

            "What if I ask nicely?" Dean joked. Castiel knew he was having a go at him but he didn't know how to handle the situation. "Oh come on! You're really going to act all prude and virginal and think that that doesn't turn me on?"

            "I'm sure a lot of abnormal things turn you on," Castiel replied smartly. "Including making fun of me."

            "Ok, I admit, I'm making fun of you but you gotta admit you make it easy."

            "Just leave me alone, Dean."

            "Are you angry?" the demon smiled, stepping into his space. "Are you? Hm?" he tugged at his tie.

            "I'm getting there."

            "And what are you going to do? You can't smite me. I'm too strong for that."

            "I can try."

            "Right," Dean pushed him so forcefully Castiel nearly lost his footing. He asked him to stop but it was no good. "What are you going to do about it? Hm?" he pushed him again, this time sending the angel to the floor.

            Cas couldn't control the anger that washed over him then. It was as if he finally reached his breaking point. He rose with a strong jab right at the demon's face. And then another. Furious, he grabbed Dean by his shirt and slammed him against the wall. "I said stop," he threatened through his teeth. They were so close Castiel could feel Dean's breath on his lips.

            "Halfway there," Dean smiled. And suddenly his maliciousness dissolved into a look of sweetness. "Halfway there," he repeated and the called him that word, that enochian word. _My heart_. The sound of it sent Cas melting. He loosened his grip and stared him, perplexed and thoughtless in the confusion of his emotions.

            "I'm not him and you're not Dean," Castiel said perhaps more to himself than anything.

            "Are you sure about that?"

            The angel took a step back, returning to the desk where he removed the staff from it's casing. "This is no time for games, Dean," he said, marching out of the room.

            In the hall, he nearly ran into the human Dean who grabbed his arm with urgency. "Hey buddy. I've looking everywhere for you. What's wrong? "

            Castiel shook him off and straightened out his coat. "I'm getting really sick of seeing your face."

            "Wow. Ok. Now, I know for a fact something is wrong. Hey," he clapped his hands together in an attempt to catch the angel's attention.

            Castiel groaned. "Is there no respite? Listen, Dean, I don't answer to you and I don't answer to your demon doppelganger. I'm not your toy to push around and play with."

            "Um. Ok," Dean stared at him with wide eyes. "I'm not that guy, ok? Don't confuse me with him. Look, I know he's a dick. I'm a little bit of a dick but I know that he's like the King of Dicks. I've been him. Don't let him get to you."

            "What is it?" Castiel looked at him squarely.

            "What did he do anyway?"

            "Besides systemically hunt down and murder my kin, instigate a fight with me and constantly try to convince me sodomize him, nothing of import." Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean who merely stared at him with his mouth gaping in surprise.

            "I just wanted to come and let you know that it's almost time. That's it."

            Castiel looked and began coasting his gaze about uneasily. "Oh," he said feeling a little like he had made things awkward.

            "What's that?" Dean inquired, looking down at the staff.

            "Oh, this is the staff of Moses. The demon gave it to me."

            "What to poke him with?" Dean laughed.

            But Cas didn't get the joke. "What?"

            "Nothing."

            "Show time?" Demon Dean said, shutting the door behind him. Castiel glancing at him, rolled his eyes and sighed.

            "Hey, evil me. Lighten up, ok?"

            "Kinda against my nature, handsome. Where's my Cas?" he asked, changing the subject.

            "In the ballroom. Why?"

            "He's not going. It's too dangerous so now, I gotta go lock him in our room," he started down the hall. "I'm just pissing off all the Castiels today, aren't I? And it's early."

            Human Dean turned back and gave the angel a look like he was too tired for this shit. "Consider yourself lucky, Dean. At least my doppelganger isn't making passes at you every chance he gets." He began his way back to the ballroom with Dean close behind.

            "Yeah, he is in his own way."

            Glancing over his shoulder at him, Castiel sighed once more. He was doing that a lot lately. "I can't wait until we return to the real world..."

***

New Mexico, inside some abandoned church with pink stucco walls and a neon red cross. The witch finished the last touches on the final trap. The holy oil had been poured and the summoning spell prepared.

            It was late in the day and the sun was slipping behind the dusty iron colored mountains. Rowena put the brush back into the bowl. "Any last words, Winchester?"

            "Don't worry about that," Sam answered. "I'm going to have to do a lot of talking."

            Crowley leaned against one of the fallen pews with his hands jammed into his pockets. "Please do try to be more interesting then usual, moose."

            "Just throw the match, Crowley," Sam demanded.

            The sweet smell of the smoke filled the dry desert air. Crowley, taking his mother, left to the safe location some 5 miles North as according to plan. Now it was just Sam, mustering up his courage alone.

            "Lucifer!" He shouted. "It's Sam Winchester. I think we should talk." He wasn't even going to play nice. He knew that Lucifer would show. He would be too curious not to.

            Sam wasn't disappointed. Right on the mark he arrived wearing the man from the library, however he was rapidly decaying. The bones of his face protruded out grotesquely and his one of his eyeballs barely remained attached. His form was wilting and his shoulder popped up awkwardly to his ear. He would look like a zombie if his clothes weren't so well kept and his eyes, alert and knowing.

            He attempted to smirk but his face just erupted in horrendous spasms. "If it isn't my old friend, Sam. You know a gentleman caller shouldn't ring twice in one day. It makes you look desperate."

            As was expected, Sam dropped a lighter unto the holy oil surrounding the animated corpse in a ring of fire.

            "You boys are going to start running out of that stuff," Lucifer pouted with feigned sympathy. "You know, Sam. You are the bane of my existence. I don't know why I even bothered to show. It's like I enjoy the feeling of hatred. Hm," he shrugged his one workable shoulder. "Well, I guess hatred has always been my great motivator."

            "I have a question for you, Lucifer," Sam stared him down.

            "Will I take you back? Sorry, I don't hook up with my exes. You just gotta know when the past is the past."

            "When the flesh finally falls off that body, will you just be a dancing skeleton?"

            "Anorexia is a severe medical condition, Sam. You shouldn't make fun of it. And besides, I can always go to the store and buy me a new one."

            "Oh, and how's that working out for you?" Sam walked to his duffle and pulled out a stack of papers, all printouts of federal identifications. "I looked up Nick and I looked up the poor bastard your possessing and I found a connection. We're all related. Me and all those guys. You can only possess within a certain bloodline. And I took the liberty of planting hex bags to keep them hidden from you." He dropped the stack back down in the bag.

            "I knew you were a boy wonder, Sam. Really, I did but how did you swing that? Unless of course, a certain demonic puppy of mine helped you? He did, didn't he? I knew I should've listened to the vet and given him his rabies shots." He tsked.

            "Doesn't matter, Lucifer. You have to find them before you can convince them to let you in. And good luck doing that looking like A Walking Dead extra."

            "Don't underestimate me, Sam."

            "Oh, I won't. But don't underestimate me."

            "Oh! I wouldn't dream!" He said in his best Scarlet O'Hara voice. His eyes looked about the church, searching. "Where Tweedledum? Not back from his date yet?"

            "Like I would tell you, Lucifer."

            "Right. You wouldn't. But you're very predictable, Sam. Don't forget I've been inside you-well me and a half a dozen other things. You're like a supernatural halfway house or the town slut. Either one. And when this fire finally fades away!" he suddenly became angry, a light of fury flashed in his eyes. "I'm going pimp smack you around like the disobedient whore you are!" The windows of the church blasted out, sending hundreds of shards of glass all around them. Lucifer erupted in peels of laughter. "You should have seen your face, Sam! So scared. Hilarious."

            "You're right," Sam collected himself. "I wasn't expecting that. But I know you, Lucifer. Probably better than most."

            "Yes, we were close. Sad how things like reality can really ruin a relationship," he pouted. "I thought you were the one."

            "I still might be."

            That seemed to pique his interest. "Oh, Sammy. Please do tell."

            Suddenly the warding began to fade, it's bright red reverting to nothing but dull paint on the floor. Both of them noticed immediately.

            "I guess you'll just have to keep up with the chase," Sam said. Crowley, suddenly appeared for a second just in time to snatch up Sam and leave Lucifer watching and wondering.

***

            Hermes had led them to an old warehouse on the edge of town, saying very little as a pair of Knights dragged him along. He hadn't been lying when he said the entrance to the Underworld only responded to him for when he had shouted out something in Ancient Greek, the warehouse had dissolved around them and they found themselves in what looked like barren land filled with nothing but dust and rocks. In the distance, a mouse colored river etched along the horizon, upon it a lone boatman’s silhouette paddled.

            Dean had brought along every last member of his army, every Knight of Hell and ever d-list demon that had pledged loyalty. He was certain that this would be the battle that ended the war for good. Before they had departed, Abaddon had given the First Blade to him. With Castiel armed with the staff of Moses, Dean through some act of bizarre faith gave his human self the Grace Sword as he had begun to call it.

            "You've been a great help," the demon said to Hermes.

            "I hope they skin you alive," the god countered, his nostrils flaring. His reply was the First Blade jammed into the gut.

            "Shut up," Dean said blankly as Hermes sunk to the ground. The demon army marched on, smashing the god's body into a bloody pulp beneath their feet. "Wooo!" he screamed. "Man, I am pumped," he turned to wink at his human self.

            They were soon upon the river Styx where Charon, the aged boatman stared at the force that amassed at his banks without an expression. Tall and bent, he looked like a man in his 120th year. Leaning on his oar, he greeted them. "Dean, I've been waiting for you. Didn't expect so much company." His milky eyes filled with cataracts shot immediately at Castiel. Cryptically, he croaked: "Only the human shall pass."

            With a quick gesture of his hand, Dean pulled the old man off of his flimsy boat and to the ground at his feet.

            "You can't do this," Charon clutched at the demon's shirt as he tried to climb up him, like a pale humanlike spider. "You will drown."

            "Right," Dean smiled and pushed the old man aside.

            Castiel didn't miss a beat. Approaching the shore where the river met the barren soil, the angel slammed the staff of Moses down. Feeling the surge of power from this heavenly weapon, Castiel's eyes flashed a neon blue and his body glowed bright. The weaker demons diverted their gaze. The grey white water of Styx rolled upon itself as if there was a storm raging about it but it soon obliged. To the left and to the right it parted high into the air, revealing the thick black muck of the earth beneath.

            Human Dean couldn't believe what he was seeing. Like Moses parting the Red Sea, Castiel had split the river Styx allowing an army of demons with the new father of murder himself, to march through. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. A war was about to start.

            The ground shook as the legion made their way through sounding like a thousand disjointed drums. Castiel soon fell in step with him. "Are you okay, Dean?" He asked naturally with Dean's safety his priority.

            "I just hope we don't die here" was all he could say.

            They soon came upon the gates of the Underworld. Bound in thick black chains, a three-headed dog the height of a man greeted them with a slobbering snarl. "Cerberus," Castiel informed Dean. "In the _Metamorphosis_ , a musician named Orpheus charmed him with the music from his lute."

            "I thought that was from Harry Potter?" Dean joked. Of course, it was the nerves.

            The angel turned and looked at him. Dean watched the realization come over him. "Oh, yes. It was," he confirmed.

            "What are the chances we've got this magical lute?"

            "I think Dean is just going to cut down everything in his path," Castiel answered simply. He wasn't wrong. With a word, the Knights were upon the beast. Cerberus was no match for him. Like Charon and Hermes, he was quickly killed, leaving the gates to the Underworld unattended.

          As soon as those tall, heavy stone doors were thrown a jar, a horde of spirits being held at bay by the beast Cerberus came pouring out and dissolved into the ether. Some seeing the army of demons turned back and ran. Soon, Lucifer's s own came swarming out like ants and fell upon them.

            The battle had begun.

            "Just like old times," Dean said to his angel. Brandishing the pulsating Grace Sword, he smiled thinking back fondly of his days in purgatory.

            And it was that and more. It was hand to hand combat. It was blood and guts. It was twisting bones and agonizing screams. It was the bells of Abaddon's cackle and the plea of a demon begging at his feet. The heat of the war was met only with a strange cool air that escaped from the Underworld.

            Pushing through, they found themselves in what look like a great damp cave. A long, stone stairwell descended deeper into a dark, black pit in which the bodies of demons tumbled down and disappeared.

            The Grace Sword felt like a feather in Dean's hand, it was so effortlessly powerful. In the madness, he lost sight of Cas but he could find him ever so often from the sudden flash of a light as he smote a demon.

            Dean's doppelganger lead the charge down the stairwell where it was so pitch black that if it wasn't from the pulsating light of the sword in his hand, Dean would have been totally blind. And there were the bodies littering about, some of Lucifer's, some Dean's. The horde plowed through them with no mind.

            When they finally reached the end, a cavern of grey wet rock, several presumably female gods stood waiting to greet the force. But again, they were no match and they were quickly swallowed up while the army pushed forward through another pair of heavy stone doors.

            At the end of long hall, Dean could see a man sitting on a throne of silver. A well-fitted black suit draped his long and thin form. He stoked his long ducktail beard as if his palace were not being stormed.

            Dean's doppelganger lifted a hand to signal his army to stop. Hades rose to his feet and made his way down the long hall towards them. "Took you long enough," he said in a long, hollow drawl. His eyes were sunken as if he hadn't slept for years and his skin was sallow and sagging. The black hair slicked back with grease was thinning.

            "You know what always tickles me about you pantheon ass clowns is your arrogance. Hey, I get it from Lucifer. He's a tough nut to crack but you all," Demon Dean looked him up and down in disgust. "You're all just jacked up gods of some random ass rock in some random ass Greek field who had one too many goats sacrificed in their name."

            "I don't want to fight with you, Dean," Hades droned in his tired way. "When I meant it took you long enough, I meant that as soon as I knew that your brother Sam's soul would be-and I admit, wrongly in my possession, I expected you to run through my door half-cocked."

            "Well, what can I say? I'm all my ducks in a row kinda guy," Dean lifted up the First Blade.

            Hades eyed it with despair. "Hmm...We can't help the lots we draw, Dean. I'm sorry you became such a monster."

            "And what? You're not?" Human Dean rejoined.

            The god turned and noticed him. His grey brow wrinkled in confusion. "Why? How did you manage to copy yourself...or....What are you?"

            "Hades," Demon Dean cut in. "It doesn't matter. I don't have time to explain to you. Where is Sam?!"

            The god watched him silently for several moments. "Sisyphus rolls a boulder up a hill," Hades spoke somewhat wistfully. "Sam, well Sam bails the water."

            "Dean," the angel stepped forward. "He's Tartarus, below here."

            "Take us there!" Dean commanded. When Hades didn't budge, he reiterated. "I said take us there."

            "You're going to kill me anyway even if I help you. That's what you do, Dean. You kill. You destroy. And you think because you the strongest that you have the right."

            "And who gave you the right to take all the souls from Heaven?" Castiel suddenly said to him.

            "I AM A GOD!" he screamed. The rocks that lines the long corridor shook. "That is my right."

            "You're not wrong, Hades," Dean said. "I wasn't born anything but a humble little farmer. I didn't ask for happened to me and my brother. But you know what," he approached the god and stood toe to toe. "I don't need hand outs. I take what I want because I am the strongest, I am the gutsiest, the cruelest. Hey, I'm even going to go with the cutest. But mostly, I take it because I can," he grinned evilly with his eyes flashing pitch black. Before Hades could say another word, he plunged the blade into him and watched his face up close and intimate as the light faded. Just before death, Dean kicked him away as if the Lord of the Underworld was nothing.

            "How are we going to get to Tartarus?" the angel asked.

            "You said it's below?" Castiel nodded yes. "Well, we just crack it open and see what's down there." The demon ordered his Knights to form a circle at the foot of Hades' former throne. Each lifted their hands and pushed at the ground and causing the hall to rumble. "More!" he called out.

            Soon a small crack could be seen in the rock. The cavern shook now like they were standing at the heart of earthquake. The door itself that led into the hall, crashed backwards and yet, Demon Dean and his army paid it no mind. Human Dean however, was terrified, fearful that any minute he was going to be buried alive.

            Castiel quickly approached him. "Even if we rescue Sam, we still have to worry about Lucifer. Dean, this is becoming progressively more dangerous."

            "Yeah, I get that," he answered nervously.

            "We need to consider returning to our universe soon."

            Just then a deep hole formed in the ground. Some of the Knights were bleeding from the nose and were bent over in pain but they had achieved their goal. Tartarus, a special level of the Underworld was beneath them. It was strange for when you looked down, you looked down on a range of sand colored mountains beneath the earth. Far off in the distance, a man drudgingly pushed a boulder up a hill. Threaded between the hills was a long, dark river.

            Ordering his force to stay behind and wait, Demon Dean grabbed his doppelganger's arm as well as the angel's. They were going to go down there alone to rescue Sam.

            At the foot the mountain was nothing by dust and sand and small rocks. In the distance, large shadows moved like huge people walking back and forth. A small boat floated in the center of the water up close it looked like the color of jade.

            Dean immediately recognized the silhouette of his brother shifting in the boat. Repeatedly he moved back and forth with a small cup, dumping water back into the river.

            "Sam!" The demon cried out to him. From the boat, he looked up but perhaps believing he was hallucinating he went back to his task removing the water. Just then a loud thundering sound echoed throughout the canyon. Dean turned to see the boulder rolling down the hill and the man there, marching back down to begin again. "Sam!" The demon cried out but still no answer.

            The boat began to tip. The water was too high. Frantically, Sam tried to remove it but it was no use. He gathered something up in his arms. From what they could see at the edge of the river, it looked like a small child.

            The boat began to sink. It was as if there was a whirlwind beneath them, sucking them violently in. Soon they were pulled under. Dean screaming no, ran into the river. But in seconds to his surprise, the boat reappeared.

            And Sam resumed. Bailing out the water as he had been. As he has for all eternity.

            "Do you think Hades did this?" Human Dean asked Castiel.

            "These gods penalize according to what they believe is human hubris. Sam is a good man. He thinks he can save people and they wanted to punish him for it."

            "Hm," Dean said disgusted as he watched himself, his so called evil twin make his way towards the sinking boat. "Well, they're right. Sam could handle cutting and tugging and bleeding but, this might be even crueler."

            Castiel lifted his hand and with all his power held the boat still. It hurt like hell, his brain throbbed and his ears rang but he managed somehow to pull it towards them. Demon Dean looked back at him gratefully and holding the edge of the boat when it came nearer, attempted to help pull it ashore.

            Sam just watched perplexed and silent.

***

            "Oh god," Lucifer pretended to puke. "Don't tell me we're in Texas. Couldn't you have called me to a more civilized place like Hell or something? I mean honestly Sam. Doesn't it have to hallow ground? I'm not sure these Southern Baptists apply..."

            The game was getting old, Sam knew that but he had to keep trying. The truth was he didn't pick the locations, Crowley did and as Lucifer and Sam bantered away, the King of Hell and his mother were preparing another trap. They had to continue to do this until Dean or Cas' cell phone reappeared on the GPS. And still there was nothing. And the dance went on.

            "What is this Sam?" Lucifer sighed. His body had deteriorated to the point that half his face was missing. Back in Indiana where they had just come from, he joked that he should show up next with a Phantom of the Opera mask. "After the third date, I really do expect you to start putting up. I mean come on Sam, we both know you're not a virgin. So why is it so _hard_?" He flashed him a perverse smile.

            "Well you know me, Lucifer," Sam pulled up a chair and turning it around, sat down. "I like to play _hard_ to get."

            "Hm. I appreciate that. But you know, seduction is a delicate balance, I should know. I mean I couldn't have just gone out and told Eve outright to eat that fig!" he dragged his feet over to the edge of the trap, the fire just barely touching him. "You have to give a little to keep me interested, Sam. How about a little kissy poo, hm?" Lucifer puckered his half rotting lips and sent kisses his way.

            "Maybe if you were just a little better looking, Lucifer," Sam answered.

            "Like you? Isn't that point? I want that body, Sam," He gritted his teeth. "And not in the way that pathetic, broken angel wants your brother. I want in. So come on, Sammy. Aren't you tired of playing this game? I know I am."

            "Actually, I am not, Lucifer. I could watch you pace around like a caged animal all day."

            "You can't friendzone me forever, Sam," Lucifer turned his back. "How about we come to a middle ground, hm? I agree to leave the rest of the Three Stooges alone and you and that rabid mutt burn those hex bags. We both know you're not going to say yes. Even under threat of torture. So, let's just get to it."

            The warding began to pulsate. It was fading. Their time there was about to come to an end.

            "So what's it going to boy? Yes or No?"

***

            "Is that you, Dean?" Sam dragged his fingers along his face. He couldn't be real. He couldn't be real. But nothing here changes.

            "Yeah, it's me, Sammy." Tears were welling up in his eyes. "I'm here to save you."

            "Save me? We need to help?" Sam turned back to the boat but it was long gone. Disappeared with the little girl somehow. The boulder thundered down the mountain. The sound radiated through the air. He had been listening to that sound for a thousand years and yet, it was the first time that he had really heard it. "Where am I?"

            "Tartarus," Castiel answered. "In the Underworld." Who was this strange man? Standing next to him, the spitting image of his brother. But his brother was right there, holding his face and saying something to him, something about getting out of there.

            "Did you really think I'd let you get away with this?" Another man said. A man who hadn't been there before. But he knew him. How he could he forget.

            "Lucifer," Sam said rising to his feet.

            "Oh, you remember me? I'm so flattered," he pouted. Human Dean recognized his vessel, Nick. "Oh looky here. Now, where did you two come from?" he said eyeing Dean and Cas.

            "None of your business ass clown," Human Dean retorted.

            "Right," he approached Castiel and examined him closely. "You're...I remember you! I made you rip your own grace out with your bare hands. Now that was funny!" He smiled. "But you know, what bothers me the most about this isn't that I explicitly tried to wipe out all the angels but the one that somehow comes back, is this one." He stuck his tongue as if he had just tasted something disgusting. "Blegh. I mean you're like the defunct toy that gets thrown away before it reaches market."

            "You son of a bitch," Sam pushed his way past his brother and dragged himself, exhausted and weary towards Lucifer.

            "Keep your brother on his leash before I end him for good!" Lucifer hissed.

            Human Dean grabbed him. "Hey," he said pushing the sword against Sam's chest.

            "What is that?" Lucifer stepped back. His eyes lit with horror that flashing light.

            "That's the thing my baby brother is going to kill you with," Dean answered smugly.

            Sam didn't hesitate. He didn't waste anytime for Lucifer to suddenly disappear. He lunged forward with the Grace Sword, jamming the tip of it straight into Lucifer's chest. Looking down at it, impaling him, Lucifer stumbled on his heels. Light glowed behind his eyeballs threatening to flood out.

            "Close your eyes!" Castiel screamed, instinctively grabbing Dean and covering him from the blast with his body. It was like a star exploded. Dust and rocks flew 6 feet into the air and the jade colored river rose like a giant wave.

***

            Lucifer began to sing the Jeopardy song, do-do-do~. By this time, Sam was used to this. Any minute now, Crowley would appear and they would find themselves some place else, playing the same game, and having the same conversation.

            "Times up!" He wasn't wrong. The warding had finally faded and with it, the holy fire dimmed.

            "See you soon," Sam said, getting up from his chair.

            "Oh I don't think so!" Crowley had appeared but just as he did, Lucifer had pushed him against the wall. He writhed against it powerless.

            Sam's heart pounded like a drum in his chest as he slowly began to step back.

            "You're up shit creek now. So what's it going to be?" Lucifer followed.

            "Go screw yourself," Sam spat.

            "We used to be so beautiful together, Sam," he said just before he smacked him against the wall. "So beautiful." Lucifer twisted his hands and squeezed Sam's insides and causing the blood from his stomach to come up out his mouth in mix of spit and froth. "I'm sorry to say I'm not particularly sentimental," Lucifer muttered, bitter and angry just before he snapped his fingers and broke Sam's neck.

***

            But it was quickly over. Lucifer's dead body lay on the sand with his wings etched in black. An unsettling silence filled the air. Demon Dean grabbed his brother and hugged him tightly.

            All around them Tartarus rumbled. The sky above made of the stone floors of the Underworld began to crack and fall down like rain.

            "We need to get out here!" Castiel said.

            Stepping back from Sam, Demon Dean turned to them. "I'm going to take Sam back. Take the Grace Sword and return home."

            Castiel attempted to protest but Dean didn't hesitate. He rushed over to Lucifer's corpse and pulled out the sword. But how were they supposed to get back? Fate said that they needed to find the spinning wheel. It may not be where you'd expect, she had told them.

            Dean though had feeling that it was somehow near. "Dean," the angel said, approaching him. "We can't-" The he saw it, the boulder Sisyphus continued to push ever as Tartarus around him was crumbling. Dean shoving the Grace Sword into Castiel's hand, quickly linked his arm in his. It was mad but he was going to give it a shot. Lifting his hand in the air, he traced the outline of the round curve of the boulder in the distance as it began to spin again down the mountain.

***

            Lucifer stared at Sam's dead body in silence. Maybe he was sentimental after all. He almost forgot Crowley, pinned up against the wall. "Kinda sad to see him go," he mumbled. "Oh well. More fish in the sea." He turned his grotesque face to Crowley. A piece of chin fell to the floor. He was like a skeleton malting off its excess flesh. "Now, what to do with you..."

            Crowley was powerless. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak.

            Lucifer dragged his broken foot as he made way toward him. But then, he suddenly stopped. Something was ringing in his head.

            They've returned.

            "Sorry, Crowley," Lucifer said. "Gotta date."

***

            Dean's head was swimming. He felt the heat of a hundred bodies pressed up against one another. He was someplace dark that smelled like perfume and whiskey and hair spray. A hum of people talking, dancing. The Smith's "There's a Light That Never Goes Out" playing on the radio.

            "Hey! Are you ok?" A girl's voice. He looked up to see a young woman with bright purple hair and black lipstick and cat eyes. "What did you take, man?"

            "Where am I?" he groaned.

            "Elysium," she answered. He was in what looked like a bathroom in some nightclub. There was neon graffiti all of the walls and violet nightlights and rock posters.

            Another girl came in, this one with white and black striped hair. "Damn, Brigitte Ruby, you caught yourself a hot old guy," she chuckled before entering one of the bathroom stalls.

            "Elysium? What city?" He asked, using the sink to pull himself to his feet.

            "Chicago."

            "Have you seen another guy, he's wearing a trench coat? Around my age." His head felt like he had just gotten beaten with a bat.

            The girl just shook her head no. Dean had to find him. He thanked her and mustered all his strength to make his way past her and into the rest of the nightclub. Hundreds of people, dressed in black and fishnet tights were dancing. How was he supposed to find Cas in all of this?

            He pressed through the crowd, some of the dancers turning to look at him. Morrissey over the radio singing, "Take me out tonight" in his deep voice. They danced and danced, making way for the strange man with the worried look on his face.

            And then he saw him, Cas standing right in the center of the crowd. In his hand, the Grace Sword pulsated as if in rhythm. The angel looked up over the heads of the dancers, searching for Dean.

            "Hey," he said approaching him. "You made it."

            "You're in pain," the angel said, lifting his fingers to his brow and sending a sweet rush throughout his body, healing him instantly.

            Dean smiled. They had made it. After everything, they were finally home. And they were home with the Grace Sword. "Good job, buddy," Dean said patting Cas's face.

            The music skipped. "Take-take-take me out tonight."

            And suddenly, Dean and Cas were standing in the middle of a hundred dead bodies. All the dancers, the girls in the bathroom, everyone lay dead on the floor while the Smiths played on.

            A man began to applaud. Standing on the raised platform where the DJ had been, stood a rotting corpse. Half his face exposed bone. His eyeballs horribly large without their lids.

            The song started up again. _Take me out tonight._

            "Lucifer," Castiel turned to him. "What have you done?"

            He just shrugged his one working shoulder. "I thought it was a bit crowded. Oh, baby brother, what do you got there?" He glanced down at the sword. Castiel merely glared at him. "If you're thinking about zapping it out of here to go find your friend Sammy Winchester, you should think again. He's dead."

            "You're lying," Dean spat.

            "Now, why would I lie about that? That's like so awkward, Dean. Really! He's dead. I snapped his neck. I really thought I'd feel something when I did but I really didn't." He dragged a long, boney finger along the railing. "Sometimes I really do surprise myself. I'm just so cold!"

            "Cas," Dean turned him. "We have to go. We have to find Sam."

            "Dean, you heard me!" Lucifer made his way down the short stairs to the dance floor. "I said Ding Dong, the witch is dead."

            Silence. And then the song started up again.

            _Take me out tonight_.

***

Rowena was busily filing away at her nails and her son, Crowley downed another glass of scotch. The Texas heat was dry and stifling and the witch was convinced that it was causing her thick, red hair to frizz up. Sam's dead body lay like a bag of forgotten potatoes on the other side of the abandoned Baptist Church.

            Rowena was on her last nail when the magic began to spark. A little ball of gold flashed near his waist bone where 24 hours ago, she had cut into him and shoved in a bunch of weird smelling leaves and god knows what else.

            Sam inhaled sharply as he neck snapped back into place. He spat out the blood that had begun to coagulate and dry up in his mouth.

            "Welcome back, moose," Crowley greeted him.

            "Aren't you glad I had the foresight to plant that little spell in you," Rowena smiled.

            "Yeah, thanks," he said, not exactly meaning it. "Where's Lucifer?"

            "You know that all work, no play doesn't just make Jack a dull boy," Crowley answered. "But a dead one."

            "We don't have time for your jokes," Sam said, still feeling like his insides were being twisted.

            "Naturally," Crowley tossed him his own cell phone. On the screen, Cas and Dean's name both flashed in what looked like a nightclub in the middle of Chicago. "Shall we?"

***

            Lucifer capitalized on their shock, quickly smacking the sword out of Castiel's hand and sending it sliding towards the door. He grabbed his neck with his skeleton fist, wiping blood and skin across Cas's throat.

            When Dean tried to throw him off, Lucifer pushed him against the side of the bar, forcing him to lie there on top of a pile of the dead. "Castiel, you know I used to not care a bit about you. Now, I think I may dislike you more than the Winchesters here-"

            "Leave him alone!" Dean screamed.

            "You know, Dean," Lucifer turned to look at him. "I'm getting really sick of you telling me that. Cas, Cas, please don't hurt Cas, meh meh," He mocked in a baby like whine. "You don't get to call dibs." He returned his gaze to Cas, who attempted to peel off Lucifer's fingers to no avail. "What I was saying! I dislike you because like me, you fell and here I thought you were an independent thinker like me, a real go-getter. But the kicker is, I fell because I hated humanity. And you fell," he looked back at Dean and spat. "Because you love it."

            "Hey!" Sam shouted. He stood in the doorway flanked to his left by Crowley and to his right by Rowena, the Grace Sword in his hand. "You know, if you wanted to kill me you should have finished the job."

            Lucifer dropped Cas as he turned to face them. His eyes immediately going to Rowena. "Tricked me again, didn't you, my wily bitch," he snickered. "Well, now aren't I unpopular here?" His eyes looking about.

            "Sam! Do it!" Dean shouted. Cas getting to his feet, grabbed Lucifer and held him with all his might.

            Sam rushed towards him and jammed the Grace Sword, a strange rerun from what Dean had just seen only minutes ago back in the Underworld.

            "Everyone cover their eyes!" Dean heard himself say. The nightclub rumbled. The music suddenly stopped and the multicolored lights on the ceiling came crashing down. Lucifer let out a piercing scream as his own light inside of him burst out. The liquor bottles lined up on the bar shelves busted one by one and the pipes in the wall burst.

            Dean knew it was over when he felt the water from the ceiling dripping down on him.

            "Cas!" Sam screamed. Dean looked up to see his little brother leaning over the angel, clutching at his side. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over.

            Cas lifted his hand now full of blood, exposing the gaping hole where his grace glowed.

***

            The angel laid in Dean's bed, fast asleep, his face damp and clammy and the dark brown blankets pulled up to his chin. Beside him, Dean sat watching, his face blank save for the look of agonizing worry. He had been sitting there for hours.

            Sam entered with a cup of soup in his hand and a couple beers. "Hey," he greeted his brother. "You need to eat something." Dean mechanically took the food from him but he didn't do anything with it. "I feel horrible. It's my fault. I didn't mean for the sword to hit him..."

            "It's ok, Sam. It's no one's fault. It was an accident," Dean said flatly, his eyes a pale green of sadness. His words comforting but he had nothing left in him to say them endearingly.

            "Look, Rowena is using her magic to periodically heal him. She said it helped Amara, so it's got help a simple angel like him, right? "

            "Why would she do that?"

            "I promised to let her look at some of the books in the bunker. I know it's not ideal-"

            "She can read every one of them for all I care." Dean let a pained sigh from deep within him. "As long as she can fix him."

            "She will," Sam assured soothingly. "So, how was it?" he asked, changing the subject. "How was the alternate universe?"

            "Strange. I mean we were working with ourselves. The whole story, all of it was messed up. Instead of Cain, it was me. And we had an army of demons. It was crazy. They all followed me like I was some cult leader, not me exactly, the other me," he shook his head and finally picked up the beer. "You should have seen it, Sam. The Knights of Hell were there. Abaddon practically followed my evil twin's every command. And Lucifer shut down heaven and sent all the souls to Hades. We ended up storming the Underworld, killing him, and Lucifer with a sword made from the grace of 77 angels."

            "Why?"

            "To save you," Dean looked up at his baby brother standing there and gave him a small ironic smile.

            Sam took a swig from his own beer. "I guess some things never change."

            "Yeah. You killed Lucifer there too."

            "Cas was there?"

            "Yeah, he was there. But he was human. And rich. I mean like one percenter rich. His grace was last grace we needed. He was a little different. I mean he was Cas but he had ripped out grace like Anna did and was born a human."

            "Different how?"

            "A little less awkward. Still blunt. But he was, warmer, I guess. The weirdest thing is, well, don't laugh."

            "I'll try not to."

            Dean was still reluctant but decided to say it anyway. "Dean and Cas of this alternate world were like..." he searched for the word. "Lovers, or boyfriends... I don't know." To his surprise, Sam didn't say anything. "What? Are you holding back your laughter?"

            "Why? I don't think it's funny at all, Dean."

            "You don't?"

            "No. I mean, it makes sense."

            "How?"

            "You and Cas are close."

            "But like friends," Dean protested. He was sincerely confused by Sam's reaction.

            "Honestly, I never really thought that you were just friends. Or even brothers for that matter."

            "So, you think we're gay?" Dean challenged him in his usual gruff manner.

            Sam didn't know what to say so he just gave him a look that suggested yes.

            Cas suddenly stirred in his sleep. "Hey," Dean excited, leaned forward but it was useless, he was still out. "I don't know," Dean fell back into his chair.

            "You don't?"

            "The other Dean, he talked me into kissing his Cas. He wanted to prove a point or something."

            "And?"

            "And I...I liked it. It was different." He buried his face into his hands. "I can't believe I'm saying this." Every ounce of him was humiliated and yet, it felt freeing just to let it all out. Sam was oddly supportive.

            "It's okay, Dean."

            "No it isn't. It's messed up and wrong and scary."

            "Look it's not messed up or wrong. And yeah I know, it's scary. I've been in love before, Dean."

            He looked at his little brother. "Love?"

            "That's what it is, isn't it? Look, I think you need to come to terms with it but don't not come to terms with it because you think it makes you less of a man. Dean, dad is dead. You don't have to live up to any ridiculous standard of masculinity that he placed on you." Dean didn't say anything. He just sat there sating at the side of Cas's face. "I'm going to go fix you up some real food, alright? Let me know if he wakes up."

            Sam shut the door behind him when he left. The sound of it must have woken Cas up for he grimaced and said in his deep raspy voice, "Dean?"

            "Oh hey! Buddy, you're awake!" He moved towards him with the most wondrous smile. Cas stared at him with confusion. "Welcome back."

            "Was I sleeping?"

            "Yeah, you were. Weird, I know. Did you remember what happened?"

            "Yes, I do, Dean. Where is Sam?"

            "Fixing food. Should I call him?"

            "No, it's fine." Cas attempted to sit up but the pain was too great.

            "Hey, just take it easy, alright?" Dean tucked him back in.

            "I hope he knows I'm not mad at..." He was too exhausted to finish his sentence.

            "Don't worry, Cas. Sam knows you're not mad at him. We're in this together. And um, Rowena is curing you bit by bit." Cas looked at him perplexed. "We're giving her an all access library card. It's not big deal. It's worth it."

            "Are you sure about that, Dean?" Cas grunted, clutching at his side.

            "A hundred percent."

            "I'm happy it's over," the angel threw himself back into the pillows.

            "Yeah, that was one crazy ass adventure," Dean smiled, suddenly jovial again.

            "Very crazy ass," Cas agreed and shut his eyes, trying to cope with the pain that radiated throughout his body.

            "Listen, Cas, I know you're feeling like-"

            "A very popular voodoo doll."

            "Yeah, like that. But um, I need to talk to you." Dean couldn't believe he was actually going to go through with it. But he knew that if he didn't do it now, then he never would and that he'd have to go through the rest of his life with this secret inside of him, twisting and torturing him.

            "Of course, Dean." Cas opened his eyes. Despite the sallow look of his face, his eyes were still startling blue, perhaps even more so.

            "I um, I remember what you said to the other Dean back in that basement when he kissed you."

            "Yes?"

            "I just want you to know that I-"

            "Feel the same? Listen Dean, I know it was weird. I don't want-"

            "No. That's the thing. I don't feel the same." Cas looked him so confused. "When I was there with you, the other you and uh," he stared down at his hands. They felt numb and his heart, his heart he expected it to be pounding madly in his chest but it was still, so still. "I realized that I tried pretend like I don't feel this way. I try to pretend that I don't want to see you. I try to pretend like I don't worry about you every second of the day. I try to pretend that the sound of you saying my name doesn't make me feel like," he shut his eyes. "Like everything in the world is okay. And I've tried to pretend like I don't want you. That I haven't wanted you since, I don't know. Forever, maybe?"

            He finally looked at Cas who despite the pain, sat up to look at him. "Dean..." he said softly.

            "And I'm sorry. I know that this screws up everything. I just needed to let you know and it's alright. It's ok that you don't feel the same way. I accept it."

            "What are you saying, Dean?"

            "I'm saying that-" He was going to have to say it. "I love you, Cas." It felt good to finally get it off his chest. He was scared but somehow he was free. It was like letting yourself fall backwards and not caring what happened.

            Cas looked down, thinking. "Dean," he raised his eyes to him. "I love you, too."

            A warmth washed over him. He felt like he was swimming in a dream. Breathlessness. A quiet happiness swirled in the empty of his stomach. "You do?" he asked in a small voice.

            "Of course, Dean. I thought it was obvious," he coughed, the pain shooting up through his body.

            "I don't want to hurt you but..."

            "I know, Dean. From what I've seen on television, this is generally when there's a kiss." He gripped at his stomach.

            "Yeah..." Dean looked down at his hands.

            "Well?"

            "huh?"

            "Aren't you gonna kiss me?" he asked with a little tilt of his head.

            Dean laughed, standing up; he leaned over Cas and very gently laid a warm, wet kiss on his lips. But then he couldn't stop. Despite his injuries, Cas was eager and welcoming but then another sharp pain caused him to jolt. "Hey, you okay, babe?" _Babe_. That's what other Dean called him.

            "Sincerely, Dean, I've never been better."

            Dean smiled at his sweet words. Running his hands through Cas's hair, he laid a soft kiss on his damp brow. "When you're all better," he said tucking him back in. "They'll be more where that came from."

            "Where's Rowena?" Cas asked with a cough.

            Laughing, Dean pecked his lips again. "Easy there, you need your rest." He took his seat beside his bed. "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere," he said grabbing Cas' hand and holding it tightly.

 

The End


End file.
